Basic navigational skills badly missing

Colin MacDonald said:

Quoted message said:

Mainly ignorance. I've never been in a white out but I'd kind of
assumed that you had to sit tight rather than moving around.... At
least that's what Jo Simpson and Simon Yates said they'd wished they'd
done on TtV on Sunday night!

If you *had* to move around then GPS would obviously be required. How
else?

Look at the map, decide where you want to go, take a bearing, get the
compass out, set it up to walk along the chosen bearing, and start
walking.

GPS doesn't do the "decide where you want to go, take a bearing, get
the compass out, set it up to walk along the chosen bearing, and start
walking." phase - that's *your* decison and GPS won't help you with it.
[1][2]

GPS tells you your *position*. So when you've stopped walking after
the phase above it's better method of working out where you are.
Otherwise you'd have to estimate how far you'd come. Which is fine.
...but not as good as *knowing*.

[1] Well you could use a waypoint as a point to aim for and your true
bearing but that's not really GPS - that's other stuff integrated with
it.
[2] Beyond giving you an accurate start point if you need it.

SteveO said:

Peter Clinch said:

Paul Rooney said:

I defy anyone to use pacing with any degree of accuracy in deep,
boulder-strewn heather.

The you choose a different route!!???

Not an option if that's where you slept. Not an option if that's the
way you want/need to go.

Quoted message said:

Its a no brainer, you're (presumably because you're pacing) trying to
get yourself out of a sticky situation so why put yourself into a
trickier one?

I wouldn't be pacing at all. I'd be using the GPS!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Often you can't maintain anything like a
straight line even for a few yards. Ditto with saltmarsh,
criss-crossed with channels

You just plain wouldn't be pacing in salt-marsh.

Too right! I use the GPS.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Indeed the case that there are many instances when a GPS is a frankly
better tool than a compass and pacing, or whatever.

Agreed. Can I steal your clarification Pete and suggest that it also
extends to choosing your escape route and your method of determining
how best to effect your escape.

Pacing in a salt-marsh, ordinary marsh, or peat hag for that matter?
Gimme a break.

You don't need one - you have a GPS!
--

Paul Rooney

Colin MacDonald said:

Paul Rooney said:

300 squid?! That's almost a month's beer money! But you can buy very
good ones a lot cheaper than that. Mind you, some people don't think
twice about spending that on a jacket (though it's more than the cost
of all my walking clothes put together, and they are up to the job).

What I want from a GPS, among other things, is to be able to guide me
to specific places in small French villages, so I'd need mapping as a
starter. Then I'd need the mapping to be upgradeable, because these
villages don't appear on standard basemaps with any detail, so I'd be
looking for something with connectivity and sensible amounts of memory.
But then feature-creep sets in... for only another 20 quid I can get
<insert pseudo-desirable feature here>.

In short, the Magellan eXplorist 400 is pretty much the spec I'm after,
and by the time you add in a decent set of Western Europe maps then
it's around the 300 quid mark.

I know I can get an Etrex Legend with a basemap for around 200 quid,
but a nagging voice tells me that they are getting on a bit now and
something more up to date would be better. And it doesn't take memory
cards. Though it does have better screen resolution than the
eXplorist.

I suspect the rational thing would be to get a Legend with the mapping
and be done with it, but then, ultimately, another voice tells me that
I've managed this far without a GPS and I don't need one now. And the
annoying thing is that I know this voice is right...

Colin

I guess for your intended use you'll have to fork out a lot of money
then. For hillwalking, you don't.
--

Paul Rooney

Dominic Sexton said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Rooney
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Given that a GPS does everything a compass can do

Take a bearing from a map or plot a bearing on a map?

No. That requires a person.
--

Paul Rooney

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] writes

Quoted message said:

Colin MacDonald said:

Quoted message said:

Mainly ignorance. I've never been in a white out but I'd kind of
assumed that you had to sit tight rather than moving around.... At
least that's what Jo Simpson and Simon Yates said they'd wished they'd
done on TtV on Sunday night!

If you *had* to move around then GPS would obviously be required. How
else?

Look at the map, decide where you want to go, take a bearing, get the
compass out, set it up to walk along the chosen bearing, and start
walking.

GPS doesn't do the "decide where you want to go, take a bearing, get
the compass out, set it up to walk along the chosen bearing, and start
walking." phase - that's *your* decison and GPS won't help you with it.
[1][2]

GPS tells you your *position*. So when you've stopped walking after
the phase above it's better method of working out where you are.
Otherwise you'd have to estimate how far you'd come. Which is fine.
..but not as good as *knowing*.

In other words you are now say it is better with GPS as opposed to the
"GPS would obviously be required" you stated above. I don't recall
anybody here saying that a GPS won't show its position better than the
user may estimate.

You asked how else and Colin gave you the answer.

--

Dominic Sexton

Quoted message said:

[1] Well you could use a waypoint as a point to aim for and your true
bearing but that's not really GPS - that's other stuff integrated with
it.

The GPS Unit will relay much, much more information than just where you
are!!

If you like you can set the logging on, so it will graphical (even on a
Geko 201) show the trail. This is how you've got to where you have
got!

If you like you got even reset the counters, so it will display how
far, how long, etc you have been walking. You could even take a
waypoint before leaving the car!!!!!

If you are really keen, you can even download all the local (to your
walk) summit points from a number of excellent websites e.g.
www.hill-bagging.co.uk prior to the walk. You can then get bearings
and distances from where you are to the relative summits.

It's up to you.........but a GPS unit does far, far more than just
stating your position.

David.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:36:41 +0000, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:09:02 +0000, Paul Rooney <[email hidden]>
wrote:

[...]

Quoted message said:

(My own opinion is that the reason why the arguments go on so long is
that so many people are, as Paul has said, Luddites.)

Well we just need Roger to agree now and then the four of us will be
in complete agreement on the point 🙂

Bugger! That would be a first!

As it happens, I used to think they were a waste of time. But that was
because my first experience of GPS was with a battery-eating unit
before SA was switched off, and in fine weather, on a C-to-C walk
where there were no route-finding difficulties.
Since getting one for myself (£88) and using it where it was really
needed, and where eg. pacing would have been virtually impossible, I
appreciate just how useful it is.
I've also discovered that it's a lot harder to break than it is to
break a Silva compass!
--

Paul Rooney

Quoted message said:

Colin MacDonald said:

Quoted message said:

If you *had* to move around then GPS would obviously be required. How
else?

Look at the map, decide where you want to go, take a bearing, get the
compass out, set it up to walk along the chosen bearing, and start
walking.

GPS doesn't do the "decide where you want to go, take a bearing, get
the compass out, set it up to walk along the chosen bearing, and start
walking." phase - that's *your* decison and GPS won't help you with it.

Well, yes. Your question was how would you move around without a GPS.
Or am I missing something?

But you wouldn't necessarily have to be estimating anything, if you
were walking towards a feature rather than just walking a set distance.
Take, for example, Stob Coire nan Lochain in Glencoe. When I was
there the cloud was down and we couldn't see where to go so we got a
bearing from the map, checked the compass, and off we went. Before
long the path was more recognisable, and the edge of the cliff appeared
to the right, so estimating distance wasn't an issue, only direction.

Incidentally, had I been following a GPS track at that point then the
track would have had to be _very_ accurate. The most obvious route,
prior to checking the compass, turned out to be a chute with which
words like 'plummet' are associated, and would probably have been
pretty much on line with a lazily (but not massively so) defined track.
This is a real-life, if somewhat specious, example of Judith's
'walking off a cliff' scenario.

Colin

Paul Rooney said:

I guess for your intended use you'll have to fork out a lot of money
then. For hillwalking, you don't.

Oh absolutely - I don't need to fork out any money for a hillwalking
GPS because I don't need one!

:-)

Colin

Colin MacDonald said:

Paul Rooney said:

I guess for your intended use you'll have to fork out a lot of money
then. For hillwalking, you don't.

Oh absolutely - I don't need to fork out any money for a hillwalking
GPS because I don't need one!

:-)

But who buys only what they need?

--

Paul Rooney

Paul Rooney said:

But who buys only what they need?

Hah! Not women, anyway...

<Scuttles back off into his corner...>

Colin

214Fells said:

Peter Clinch wrote "Many people are not adept at using maps to select
good routes."

That's an indefensible statement!!!!!

Many /people/ - statistical survey?

No, personal observation. Being based at a Uni with connections to a
Uni club I see a very large throughput of hill users. And most of them
could do with major improvements in their navigation, particularly map
reading ability.

Quoted message said:

/good/ routes - in whose eyes?

In the eyes of anyone who wants to maximise the ease of getting where
they're going. It often isn't a straight line. Slaves to compass
bearings and GPS GoTos generally often in overly straight lines AFAICT.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Rooney
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Dominic Sexton said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Rooney
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Given that a GPS does everything a compass can do

Take a bearing from a map or plot a bearing on a map?

No. That requires a person.

So does putting in batteries and turning a GPS on. If the GPS is not
switched on it cannot indicate north.

Even if it is on it cannot act as a protractor for the user to take or
plot bearings...

--

Dominic Sexton

John Yale said:

Peewiglet <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Also, and just to be clear, I'm not implying that I consider £70 tp be
a trivial sum, but I do think it's fairly reasonable for something
that could save a life (or potentially the life of a whole family).
Bearing in mind what many people spend on waterproofs, rucksacks,
boots, this/that/theother layers, maps, map cases, tents, mattresses
etc etc etc, I don't see it as disproportionate. The reality may be,
though, that they actually cost about twice as much as that, and I'd
certainly agree that that would put them into a totally different
'cost league'.

Tracklogs current prices
Geko 101 - £75
Geko 201 - £95
eTrex - £90

Not that I would recommend the 101 as it doesn't have a computer interface,
but if you are on a budget and you don't have a computer... hang on, in
that case you are not reading this 🙂

John

Alright, everyone, I'm convinced; I really ought to consider getting a GPS!

The big question is which one do people recommend? I would want
something that:

1. I could load with a weekend's worth of walks from Anquet (including
wet weather alternatives, so perhaps 5 routes in total)

2. Will survive on 1 set of batteries for the weekend

3. Will download what I actually walked onto Anquet after the weekend

4. Compass and altimeter would be nice, but I already have a compass,
and my watch has an altimeter on it, so these functions are not essential.

5. Will any allow me to upload a map (either from anquet or a jpg) as a
basemap? I guess this would make it extremely expensive...

So, come on everybody, some suggestions please. Christmas is coming, and
it might just go on my christmas list, as a present to me from me.

Geoff

SteveO said:

Pete, sorry not ganging up on you here ;-) but its easy to see where
that "warm and fluffy" laisser faire can start to come apart at the
seams; expand the envelope of "hill use" to scrambling and then
climbing and you very quickly enter an area where you *should* be
berated if your equipment is below a certain level and you
subsequently get into trouble.

I don't really see we have a problem there. The MRTs and police quite
evidently feel they are free to criticise things they see as
particularly foolhardy. But if you're going scrambling, as opposed to
walking, you don't need /any/ extra equipment, so what is there
particularly to criticise in equipment selection beyond walking?

Quoted message said:

Winter walking on steep snow slopes
without an iceaxe is something else that I would similarly categorise.
I'd also be prepared to argue the point that crampons are de rigeur in
that environment too.

But people are really playing the wrong way against the laws of physics
if they think they can stand around on sheets of ice and not risk
slipping. It's a vastly greater risk.
And while we're on climbing, winter climbing is almost always going to
more dangerous than going out walking without a GPS. So do we just
categorise winter climbers as daft and deserving chastisement for
partaking of high risk activities that could get MRTs out on the hills
"unjustifiably"? Of course not. If you're going to preach on safety
you need to look at real risk levels. They are not generally great for
recreational walkers.

Quoted message said:

Then the /laisser faire/ also peels apart when [ustfiable] criticism
is made of folk who do get into trouble.

Though as has been pointed out, for the most part MRTs aren't big on
criticism. People have noticed it in increasing quantities, but it's,
what? maybe 3 or 4 cases a year? Put that against the number of hill
users going out and coming back okay and it's a very small amount.

Quoted message said:

But I also agree with what I interpret from what you're saying that
being proscriptive a difficilt position to defend.

And in any case needs to be looked at in terms of actual risk levels,
not relative ones. I see people pitching a solution here for a problem
that doesn't really exist, and the evidence that it doesn't really exist
is the huge numbers who practice this hobby quite safely on a regular
basis without that "solution".

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Paul Rooney said:

But who buys only what they need?

Nobody much, but we like to waste money on our own particular
priorities, not somebody else's notion of what unnecessary things we "need".

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

John Yale said:

Peewiglet <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Also, and just to be clear, I'm not implying that I consider £70 tp be
a trivial sum, but I do think it's fairly reasonable for something
that could save a life (or potentially the life of a whole family).
Bearing in mind what many people spend on waterproofs, rucksacks,
boots, this/that/theother layers, maps, map cases, tents, mattresses
etc etc etc, I don't see it as disproportionate. The reality may be,
though, that they actually cost about twice as much as that, and I'd
certainly agree that that would put them into a totally different
'cost league'.

Tracklogs current prices
Geko 101 - £75
Geko 201 - £95
eTrex - £90

Not that I would recommend the 101 as it doesn't have a computer interface,
but if you are on a budget and you don't have a computer... hang on, in
that case you are not reading this 🙂

Well there you go, then! The 201 is an excellent little GPS.

Best wishes,
--
,,
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

Quoted message said:

Peewiglet said:

Well if you know exactly where you are, and decide where you want to
go, it's quite possible to take a bearing off the map, put it on the
compass and walk on it. Pacing and timing can be used to calculate
distance covered, although clearly the effectiveness of those methods
is going to be affected by the terrain. Much of the time, though, it
should be possible to have a pretty good idea of how far one has
worked on pacing alone.

Known as estimating. ...but I was thinking that on a mountain you need
better than a "pretty good idea" where you are.

If you navigate from identifiable point to point, though, it's
possible to know on a regular basis exactly where you are, and in the
interim periods to have a very good idea.

Quoted message said:

...but it seems I've got a poor idea of what a mountain is in this
context. I'm was thinking Annapurna and the OP was thinking Pen-y-fan!

Yes, there's a bit of a difference 🙂

Best wishes,
--
,,
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

Fran said:

[email hidden] said...

[GPS]

Quoted message said:

I don't see them as essential, but they cost little,

Um. Whether or not they cost much rather depends on the available cash.
Don't forget, you're a worker who earns money; you don't have children
to pay for etc. Plenty of walkers are unemployed and living on state
benefits or have families to consider. To you a GPS isn't expensive; to
me it is.

When the kids were smaller, money occasionally became very, very
tight, so we spent whole weeks or two economising on food. Beans on
toast all week was not unheard of. ('Oh, no, Dad, not another bean
famine!'😉 This saved more than the price of a GPS in a fortnight!
--

Paul Rooney

Colin MacDonald said:

Paul Rooney said:

But who buys only what they need?

Hah! Not women, anyway...

<Scuttles back off into his corner...>

Grrrrr.....

🙂

Best wishes,
--
,,
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \