I had a trip out to the local forest today - mostly pine plantation with patches of beach that are always noisy underfoot. I thought I'd dust off the old navigation skills. The forest is layed out mostly in a grid so there's not much incentive to take bearings. However it is a good opportunity for practicing pacings, something not often required in daily life.
I measured distances on the map to various points in the forest, and counted paces accordingly as though lost in the mist, as per my trusty chart which has been attached to my compass since my teens - many years ago. It's been a while since I've done this, but I found my pacings to be fairly accurate, and I reminded myself of my tendency to take slightly longer steps under these sorts of circumstances. The theory of these things is all well and good, but an appreciation of inherent error in a method comes from actually using it and practicing.
In the end I got distracted by plants and a herd of deer which bolted at the sight of me, and I called it a day on the pace counting. I proceeded towards my end goal, following the various tracks and only vaguely paying attention to the map.
To cut a long story short, I wound up at a set of intersecting tracks that could not feasibly exist according to my OS map. I wandered on a bit but for the life of me could not figure out where I was on the map or how this could be. I knew where I should be but it made no sense. Time was of the essence, and I didn't want to spend too long on this, so I checked on my phone gps - locus maps with a 'lo' map of England. Low and behold, the OS map - only two or three years old - missed out several forest tracks, whereas the locus map showed even the smallest of paths.
In any case I eventually brewed myself some soup, found an enormous piece of fatwood in the decaying stump or a pine, and went home.
The point of all this is that it reminded me of something important. People often say 'learn to use a map and compass' in reference to those who navigate in the hills with nothing but a phone (quite right too). But this served as a reminder that I can make mistakes and that despite being well practiced in navigation, I am not infallible. Having an awareness of potential for human error can be a useful thing.
I measured distances on the map to various points in the forest, and counted paces accordingly as though lost in the mist, as per my trusty chart which has been attached to my compass since my teens - many years ago. It's been a while since I've done this, but I found my pacings to be fairly accurate, and I reminded myself of my tendency to take slightly longer steps under these sorts of circumstances. The theory of these things is all well and good, but an appreciation of inherent error in a method comes from actually using it and practicing.
In the end I got distracted by plants and a herd of deer which bolted at the sight of me, and I called it a day on the pace counting. I proceeded towards my end goal, following the various tracks and only vaguely paying attention to the map.
To cut a long story short, I wound up at a set of intersecting tracks that could not feasibly exist according to my OS map. I wandered on a bit but for the life of me could not figure out where I was on the map or how this could be. I knew where I should be but it made no sense. Time was of the essence, and I didn't want to spend too long on this, so I checked on my phone gps - locus maps with a 'lo' map of England. Low and behold, the OS map - only two or three years old - missed out several forest tracks, whereas the locus map showed even the smallest of paths.
In any case I eventually brewed myself some soup, found an enormous piece of fatwood in the decaying stump or a pine, and went home.
The point of all this is that it reminded me of something important. People often say 'learn to use a map and compass' in reference to those who navigate in the hills with nothing but a phone (quite right too). But this served as a reminder that I can make mistakes and that despite being well practiced in navigation, I am not infallible. Having an awareness of potential for human error can be a useful thing.
