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I was on a Mountain Leader Training Course last week.
On Tuesday we went out on expedition and an overnight camp in the Moelwyns.
After setting camp at 5pm we had dinner and at 7pm off we went for a night navigation exercise.
Our camp was at SH 6494 4752. Rain was heavy and visibility very poor as we were in the cloud.
I was asked to navigate from the camp to the sheepfold at 6508 4758. I took the group to the head of
the lake Lynn y Biswail (Lake of [censored]) and then paced on a bearing to where I thought the sheepfold
should be. I then asked the group to remain at that spot while I paced a box search and found the
sheepfold (and a f**king big crag) just twenty paces away - that's how bad the visibility was!
Another group member was asked to navigate to the 572m spot height at 6476 4750. We probably
got there.
The third group member was asked to navigate from the spot height to Foel Boethwell 6508 4764 (!?)
the exact summit of which is not clear on the map. There may be a ground survey spot at the GR
given, but then again there might not be. Whatever, the summit of Foel Bothwell is not immediately
apparant at night in poor visibility, and, it seems that the bearing we walked on was 10 degrees out
so we may have been several metres to the east. Also, the party member navigating boxed 30 paces
east to avoid a crag but never boxed those paces back. I suspect that a point that we thought was
Foel Bothwell was the outcrop at 6516 4758.
I was then asked to take us back to the 572 spot height at 6476 4750. I took a back bearing from
what I assumed was the Summit of Foel Bothwell 6514 4774. The visibility was so poor that the only
way to navigate was to send another group member ahead, ask them to move left or right so they'd be
standing on the bearing and walk to them, then repeat the process. En route we heard a shout from
our camp by the instructor's sister. Our instructor shouted back that we were OK - however, on
reflection, the shout seemed to come from the wrong side of our supposed position.
I wasn't able to find the 572 spot height, so the instructor asked me to pace onward and find the
wall which runs northwest from the lake, just south of the spot height. I couldn't find the wall.
We then backtracked to try to find the summit of Foel Bothwell again - and were still unable to find
the summit. We were, perhaps, on the crags at the 631 spot height 6534 4736.
Once again we tried to find the 572 spot height - our last known position, and once again we
counldn't find it. So we tried once again to find the wall which runs west from the lake, and once
again we couldn't find it.
We were lost, the time was 10pm and we'd been out in the minging rain and mist for three hours. All
of us, except the instructor, had left our packs at the camp. I had a double survival bag in my
pocket, some snacks, a water bottle, spare batteries and an emergency LED torch. The two other
trainees had similar equipment but no survival bag. The instructor was rather better equipped with a
rope and survival bag but no group shelter.
We tried to backtrack to Foel Bothwell, but it was hopeless. We were lost.
I said to the instructor that we should assume we were in the region of Foel Bothwell and head due
west so we would "fall into" one of two walls which form a V, meeting at 6454 4774, and depending on
the direction of the wall we could follow the wall to 6454 4774 and confirm our position as the
cross in the walls are clearly offset, not quite making an X. From there we could navigate back to
the lake and our camp.
The instructor said that she would be happier walking in a north westerly direction, so that if we
missed the wall we would run into Llyn LLagi. I was happy with that plan.
Off we went. We ran into a wall running in a NW direction, so we followed it. Then we came across a
swolen stream. This was a surprise. No stream crosses the wall we guessed we were following.
Where do streams come from? Springs or lakes. Where do they flow to? Other streams or rivers, lakes
or the sea. Given the possibility of the stream dividing if we followed it up stream, and that we
were probably not on the wall we thought we must be on, we decided to follow it downstream - we
toyed with the idea of the stream being unmapped, and that it was a temporary one due to the heavy
rain; we thought that unlikely as it was such a large stream. But we weren't about to jump to any
conclusions until we had a definate fix on our position. The ground was rocky and broken. Going was
tough. Passing a crag our instructor put her hand in some gorse. The message was passed back to me
to be careful - I was at the rear the instructor in front. I was so careful not to put my hand into
the gorse that I didn't pay attention to my footing. I lost my grip, slipped down the crag, regained
my grip, then lost it again and ended up sitting up to my chest in the stream!
It was cold, still raining, I was soaked, visibility was very poor, it was 1am and we were
hopelessly lost. We'd been out for 6 hours. Yet, our moral was still high. Secretly I was loving the
experience. I'm quite used to twelve hour-plus walks and knew that I could walk until daylight if
necessary. I'm out for a weekend in the hills every fortnight and spend two full weeks per year in
Scotland bagging Munros and Corbetts. Kerry, a fellow candidate has had less experience, but was
very competent. She has her gold Duke of Edinburgh Award and was a member of her univerersity
mountaineering club. Paul, Kerry's boyfriend was even less experienced but still very competent. The
instructor, I felt, should look after herself, although I was still concerned about her. She
couldn't hold a compass to the map, and relied on me to help her.
Paul heard my expletive as I fell in the water, but I didn't tell the instructor that I had fallen
in until much later. I was concerned about morale. I was initally very concerned about my tumble,
but as soon as my body had heated the water on my trousers, under my over trousers, I felt warm
enough and happy enough - and I was enjoying the whole experience.
I haven't mentioned much about clothing, and now's as good a time as any - now that I'm cold and
wet, to say what I was wearing.
On the way to the start point in the minibus I was wearing cotton undersocks and cotton underpants,
a Hagloffs tee shirt, a Berghaus zip neck sweater, Craghoppers trousers, thick acrilic walking socks
and (fortunately) my Scarpa Manta walking boots as my other boots were still damp from the day
before. In my pack I had my Sprayway Windbloc fleece, my Sprayway Gortex - reproofed 6 months ago
after a soaking I received on High Street, new gaiters, over trousers, ski gloves and fleece gloves
with leather grip and a fleece baseball type hat with fold down ears and neck. I also had a sealed
freezer bag containing dry cloting: a Lowe Alpine t-shirt, Hagloffs pants, cotton socks and a
Craghoppers zip neck sweater.
In the morning, soon after we set off it started to rain and I took off my sweater and donned my
Sprayway Gortex, gaiters and over trousers.
We pitched our tents in the rain, and, inevitably, the insides got wet. My freezer pack of clothes
remained sealed but I put on my Berghaus sweater and winter fleece, and changed my gloves - the
others were soaking. We cooked in the rain. For the night navigation I remained similarly clad (base
layer, two mid layers, and a shell layer). Our instructor was unwilling to take us out as the
visibility was so poor, offering us a 5am navigation instead. That was Kerry and Paul's preferred
option, but I said that they were just being lazy, and putting off the inevitable. And so I
convinced our instructor to take us out.
She said that we'd need our packs, but I didn't like the idea of taking my 95L pack out of my tent,
getting it wet again, and putting it back in my tent after the walk so I protested. She insisted
that one of us must have a survival bag so I said that I'd put it in my pocket. I also took my spare
batteries and emergency LED head torch.
As I didn't have my pack I was well clothed. A good base layer, a fleece sweater, a bindbloc
fleece, and a recently re-proofed gortex, poor quality trousers, reasonable over trousers, gaiters
and excellent boots; my pants and socks were cotton, but I wasn't over concerned about that - and
besides, I like to keep my testicles cool!!! So even though I had fallen in a swollen mountain
stream I was warm. I still cannot recall if I was wearing my gloves or not. I know that I wasn't
wearing my fleece gloves with leather palms as they were hanging from the roof of my tent dripping
onto my sleeping mat (my sleeping bag was still inside two freezer bags to keep it dry). I think
that I'd decided not to wear my dry ski gloves as I wouldn't be able to handle a map a compass
very well if I was wearing them. But I don't remeber my hands ever feeling cold - so maybe I was
wearing them.
We continued scrambling down the stream in the rain and mist, then, at about 01:30 we found an
unmistakable feature. The stream flowed through a gap in a wall at 6404 4724. The feature was
unmistakable because we'd passed it in daylight on our way up to the camp. All we had to do was
follow the stream back up to "our" lake and find the campsite.
By 3am I was tucked up in my sleeping bag and hearing the furious exchanges between our instructor
and her sister, who'd remained at the camp the whole time. The night was not entirely comfortable -
but it was certainly better than being stuck out in the open.
The following morning we packed up and went for a post-mortem walk.
The sheepfolds next to the f**king great crags were obvious. The 572 spot height was less clear. The
summit of Foel Bothwell was not a distinct point, and on out thrid attempt the previous night we may
well have been on the 631 spot height but we thought that we were on the crags to the north west of
Foel Bothwell. The boundary running northwest from the Lake was a well defined wall. We thought it
must have been removed! A minor stream that we crossed flowing northwest led straight into our lake,
but we thought that it must be one that was a tributary to a larger stream that flowed into Llyn
Llagi. After we found the wall running north west, and met the stream flowing west, had we gone up
stream we'd have come to our lake.
So, until the moment we decided to walk north west to meet a wall, we were never more than 100m from
our lake. The problem was that we thought that we were to the north wast of our lake, but we were,
in fact, to the south east.
On Friday I had my course de-brief. The course director was full of praise about my night
navigation, and said that the experience I had would stand me in good stead when I take the Mountain
Leader assessment next October. He said that the fact that I was part of a group which got lost was
an important experience, and that my input to recover the situation and my part in assisting the
instructor to lead the party to safety was a valuable lesson. Being able to keep a clear head, and
look for strategies to find an identifiable point from which to navigate is essential if I am to
take groups of young people into the mountains of the British Isles.
The Mountain Leadership assessment is about crisis management, and the ability to deal with
potentially dangerous situations. We were taught to cross rivers safely, not because we should ever
lead a party across a river, but because we may have to in an emergency. We were taught to tie a
person to a rope and belay them down a crag, not because it's what we would expect to do, but what
we might have to do in exceptional circumstances. We went on a night navigation exercise, not
because we'd ever lead a group on a night walk, but because if the [censored] hit the fan and the fan
didn't like it, that is what we might have to do. We were taught to make a stretcher from a survival
bag and rocks, not because we should expect to have to do it, but because we might have to.
I loved the whole week and the challenges it posed.
The next stage to to take a two day first aid course which covers hyperthermia; have 40 "quality
mountain days" logged, including 8 nights camping - four of which must be wild camps - and then take
the assessment next October.