I, am formatting a letter to be included in my local ramblers news letter. I, in light of the above story and many, many, many other non prepared walkers thought that you may be interested:- Note that the first letter on every line should be bold.
Mountains that are rising before us
And our way ahead is far from clear
Paths are nowhere to be seen
Around us, a landscape of rocks and streams
Not one of us has been here before
Did the leader not say that he knew the route?
Confusing, no one knows which direction to go
Over there say some, no, over there say others
Marvellous how easy it is to get lost
Pause! Look! Think! What do ”I “ do?
Assess where the sun is positioned in the sky
Sun is shining, well; look at the time on my watch
Simple now to find south, so get the map and compass out
I get the map and compass out to find out where we are
Suss it out from all the landmarks that we see around us
Ah! Prominent land marks that we can identify on the map
Must be, yes! We know where we are and the direction to go
Upwards and onwards our way is now known
Striding along with complete confidence
Thanks to the map and compass, and of course know how.
I am a Rambler not a gambler.
As one can see above: - MAP AND COMPASS IS A MUST

It is frustrating to continually hear these stories yet no one seems to look at a possible root cause - how we teach people to navigate.

We use an 80 year old static plotting system based around the needs of the military and trench warfare, it is based around numeracy and communicating information over a phone/radio. Grid references bearings etc. one wrong number and you can kill your own troops hence the importance placed on those elements. It puts some people off and is made far more complicated than necessary so they don’t want to learn the skills, they seem too complicated.

Today recreation takes the form of on the move navigation. When did anyone last use a grid reference to navigate? Why do you need a number for a direction? The best on foot navigators are orienteers, their maps have no Grid numbers, compasses without numbers and dials that don’t turn. Orienteering Coaches and National Navigation Award Tutors are taught how to teach the subject make it fun and simple. No one else is because there is no system in the UK, no course a teacher can do within education to learn to teach the subject. Look at the OS beginners guide to using a compass at a cross roads in a wood. A complex bearing for going across country is demonstrated where all that is required is to set the map with a compass needle. Why adjust for 1 degree Mag variation when the compass is up to 2.5 degrees inaccurate. Why take a bearing to walk on down a straight track!?
The orienteering map is now easily available and is the best learning tool, safe environment, lots of opportunity and quick feedback. British Orienteering have nearly 600 downloadable maps on their website, many are free. An orienteering map for teaching navigation is the equivalent to the climbing wall 40 years ago for teaching climbing.
Sort out how we teach navigation and we will reduce these incidents in the hills, encourage less reliance on GPS as the sole navigation aid and give more people the healthy option of taking a walk in the outdoors.

It is so frustrating to repeatedly see these reports from all over the country.

Yet we seem to blame the individuals and overlook a possible root cause of the problem. We have no logical teaching methodology for navigation in the UK. There is no course within education a teacher can do to learn to teach the subject. The geography teacher is required to introduce map reading to get children through exams. This is static plotting skills developed by the military 80 years ago for using their maps (Ordnance Survey). It is numeracy based grid references and bearings for communicating positions via phone or radio. One wrong number and you could kill your own troops. It is boring class room stuff made over complicated and leads people to lose interest and believe navigation is too difficult.

What we need to teach is on the move navigation skills which is what walkers do - when did anyone last use a grid reference to navigate with? Orienteers are the best on foot navigators their maps don’t have grid numbers, their compasses don’t have numbers on and dials don’t turn. It is all in their simplified teaching system.

Look at the OS website Beginners Guide to Using a Compass. In a forest at a cross roads, why teach a bearing for walking cross country in poor vis when all that is required is to set the map with the compass needle and see which path lines up with the one you want on the map. Why add the further complication of adjusting for 1 degree Mag variation when the compass is inaccurate up to 2.5 degrees according to the manufacturer? And this is so you can walk on the bearing down a straight track! Wrong skill, wrong context and way over complicated.

This just illustrates how the lack of real understanding of teaching the skills in context puts people off learning, erodes any confidence they might have with a map and leads them to believe it is too difficult.

British Orienteering and the National Navigation Award Scheme are the only organisations that train coaches to teach the subject with a simple and fun system of learning using systematic and appropriate progressions. The key to this learning and developing navigation confidence is the orienteering map. Lots of opportunities and feedback and a safe environment to learn the skills. Almost everything one can see is marked on the map unlike a 1:50,000 map. British Orienteering now have about 600 maps of permanently set out courses around the UK which can be download from their website, many are free. This scale of map revolutionises the teaching opportunities, it is the equivalent in teaching navigation that the climbing wall was to teaching rock climbing 40 years ago.

If we change the approach to how the subject is taught in the UK we might just reduce these incidents, reduce the number of people using the GPS as their sole navigation device and give more people the confidence to get outside for a healthy walk. If the OIA got behind this they would probably do more to increase sales of outdoor equipment than any new gadget will. We need to give people skills and confidence in the outdoors for life.

FOGET MAPS, GE A SMARTPHONE

I walked the cape wrath trail in winter using only the OS map app on my smartphone.

I was not in danger due to bad navigation once.

smartphones, GPS and power banks are now so reliable that a map is no longer necessary. with basic knowledge on use, a back up power bank and a reasonable smartphone you are far safer than a "competent" navigator without a phone.

I point out that the common tourist is never going to learn to use a map to any useful degree, so smartphone navigation is a great leap in the right direction.

I should be mandatory to carry a smartphone whilst out in the hills, they don't need signal to work.

Although I do take paper maps, usually downloaded, I am inclined to agree with JD Burns the reassurance of a location icon shown on the phone maps is great and helps with planning resupply and pub meals.
I have recently done multi week walks in Holland and the Bavarian Alps and ensured I had the same map /location facility there. I sent the paper maps home from Germany: they were large scale and I wasn't using them. I also had a guide book.
I experienced snow chutes and large tree blow downs which totally obscured the path but could see the route on the phone.
I had a power bank but never used that as I used café sockets and the odd mountain hut to charge the phone. I do have Lenovo p2 phone with a 3 day battery.
The issue comes when the inexperienced go off into wild without planning charging and experience an outage and are totally unaware of their location.

Nigel WILLIAMS very good post.

In my younger days I sharpened my Nav skills through Orienteering which I found excellent.

You asked who uses grid reference for navigation, I do all the time on each and every route. I plot the 10 figure grid reference into my Satmap 20 gps for every summit I want to bag that day. How I navigate/ traverse between summit positions relies on my map reading skills particularly following contours.

This is one of at least half a dozen examples of MR incidents in the last two weeks where Sarloc/ Phonefind was used to identify the Misper’s location. This means they had a gps enabled phone and battery life. They had their location at their fingertips but sub contracted identifying their position to Sarloc.

What we need is more education of how to use the gps built into phones to know their location. After all by definition one cannot be ‘lost’ if you know your position. The first rule of navigation is knowing your current position whether it’s via micro navigation, back bearing or looking at a gps device.

There would be far less MR incidents of ‘lost’ people if only people knew how to use their phones to identify their position.

I do agree with those view points and personally use both paper and GPS. I guess we are able to make educated decisions about what we use based on some understanding of the skills involved.

However all the youth organisations in the UK are still teaching navigation generally based on the leaders experience of being taught to navigate themselves and by and large using some sort of methodology that is probably not designed around on the move recreation in the outdoors.

Perhaps unfortunately, I don’t think any of those organisations would commit to teaching nav purely on GPS mapping for fear of accusations should a group actually get lost due to some sort of device failure, GPS scrambling or spoofing. It would be nice to think that their introduction to navigation was fun, simple and active with rather less plotting in the classroom.

Reasoned, informed and intelligent views

Better than the usual, 'carry a map and know how to use it' shouty brigade.

Personally I use a GPS on my phone with battery back up. I carry a paper map too as a just-in-case but rarely get it out these days.

I tend to prepare a day or two before by spreading my Explorer map out on the floor and memorise key parts of the route, escape points, alternative routes, handrails etc. to visualise the walk beforehand.

I then use the GPS to confirm what I'm doing on the day.

Nigel, if the people involved have no map or compass {as is often the case] it is also likely that they have never considered the need to learn navigation by whatever method.
Is that not the problem?

Margaret - yes there are definitely people that fall into that category too. Not sure how we solve that one other than a compulsory element through school. Various forms of media, continually repeat the message to take map and compass and learn how to use it. But it doesn’t seem to register.

So I come back to my points in the first post - there is the group that are interested enough to go on line for information, possibly to what might be considered the go to on line guide to learn how to use a map and compass, the OS website. The beginners guide to using a compass describes a point to point cross country technique for what is a map setting problem. It looks far too difficult so we will just use our phone.

After that I suppose there is the group that have map and compass but choose objectives beyond their navigation competence or confidence. That too often goes back to what and how they might have been taught. And they have not been taught how to benchmark their hill experience against their navigation competence. Something orienteering teaches very well.

As I started out in this thread it is not entirely their fault. At least they are going out and having adventures and in reality it is rare that getting lost leads to serious harm - more often it is embarrassment. However it is wrong to ignore the risk to others who have to come looking.

Nigel, I take your points and the benefits to be gained from orienteering. Also, the benefits of navigation practice close to home in local countryside and parks.

Learning any skill takes time, effort and self-reliance, which may also be a factor in our fast modern world.

What we don't know are the numbers involved in the three categories described, which might be useful.

Thanks for your reply.

PS - In the 1980s Marvin Creamer, a 66 year old amateur American sailor, sailed around the globe without the aid of navigational instruments. Worth a read.