Lost at Night

AndyP said:

I can remember spending a few hours in a plastic survival bag as a 14 yr old army cadet at
Sennybridge. As I remember It was bloody cold and I was a lot warmer as soon as we got up and
started walking. Surely the advantages of a plastic bag over waterproof and windproof jacket and
trousers isn't a great deal anyway as you've already cut out most of the windchill factor affecting
convective heat losses. The warmth generated from exercise is huge on the other hand. My
inclination would be not to use a survival bag unless I was injured or completely exhausted. Would
anyone recommend otherwise based on experience rather than theory?

Yes. If it's dark and rocky/craggy, and the weather is very bad, then it's quite likely that any
progress would be so slow that you couldn't warm yourself up by moving on - you might have to sit it
out. Further - trying to go on in very bad conditions can sap your energy dangerously. In a
situation like this, the orange bag is seriously uncomfortable, but can save your life. If you're
sat in a storm, your clothes probably won't be enough to protect you properly.

--
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Phil Cook said:

C L Imber said:

W. D. Grey said:

From your report your plan did not work - you were constantly somewhere other that where you
thought you should have been.

Until we found out where we were, by following a plan.

It seems to me that you found out where you were by accident. You should noy have had to go that
far before finding where you were.

You found a wall and were following it then you found a stream where there shouldn't have been if
the wall was the one you thought you were following. So in that case you try to match all the walls
with streams crossing them. You say there were three. But from what I can figure from the map they
all point in different directions. Did nobody check the directions of the wall, stream and slope?

All three were checked - but with 10m visibility exact direction is hard to ascertain. Contour lines
are marked at 10m intervals.

In the locality there are three streams running in approximately the same direction which cross
walls which run in approximately the same direction.

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

C L Imber said:

I never used the word teenager. I used the term "young people".

Which is PC-speak for teenager.

Below which I think the word 'child' sufficeth. I have to say that I'm very relieved Mr CLImber
isn't a primary school teacher round my way. I don't think I'd trust him with my teenagers, let
alone my primary aged children.
--
Fran If you need my email address please ask.

W. D. Grey said:

In article <[email hidden]>, C L Imber
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

From your report your plan did not work - you were constantly somewhere other that where you
thought you should have been.

Until we found out where we were, by following a plan.

Some plan Hmm!

Indeed. It worked, and was bound to work.

Simon Challands said:

It's fairly obvious (I hope!) that it should be there, since it's the difference between a bunch of
kids and a bunch of adults who can be expected to be able to take care of themselves (I appreciate
that there are exceptions to that, too). If the adults in question have never walked further than
the bus stop in their lives then they should be given advice, certainly, but how they act on it is
their own business. Ditto if obvious advice isn't given - it shouldn't have to be (if it's pouring
with rain then waterproofs are pretty obvious, although I'd usually opt for the stay indoors
approach then).

A group leader still has a responsibility to those they lead.

Phil Cook said:

C L Imber said:

I never used the word teenager. I used the term "young people".

Which is PC-speak for teenager.

I'm not very PC. When I use the term "young people" I mean any person who is toilet trained up to an
adult of 18 - 25 depending on the individual.

However, it's safe to assume that I wouldn't take out a party of toilet trained three year olds. 9 -
11 is a more likely age range for me to take out.

Simon Challands said:

Ditto if obvious advice isn't given - it shouldn't have to be (if it's pouring with rain then
waterproofs are pretty obvious,

On occasion I've been up mountains when it started to rain and to my amazement my companions
expressed surprise and announced that they didn't bring any waterproofs with them. I won't
mention names...

Paul
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On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 02:18:49 GMT, [email hidden] (Chris

Street) said:

not forgetting lady luck.

People make their own luck.

Fran said:

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

I was beginning to think that either I, or everyone else in this group, had completely the wrong
idea of the purpose of the ML award and how people learn.

You need to bear in mind that you are not the only poster to this NG to have done this course; you
need also to bear in mind that you are probably not the most experienced hill walker here. Whatever
the purpose of your original post might have been you have shown yourself to be, if not less
experienced than maybe you thought you were, then certainly not as wise.

I'm quite prepared to accept that. I'm not prepared to accept that I'm an *incompetent git* for not
insisting our instructor lie down in some damp hollow for the night when there was every possibility
of extracting ourselves from our problem, and on the basis that her hands were cold.

On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 02:29:19 GMT, [email hidden] (Chris

Street) said:

C L Imber said:

Thank you for your heart-warming response.

I was beginning to think that either I, or everyone else in this group, had completely the wrong
idea of the purpose of the ML award and how people learn.

You don't learn by sticking your fingers in your ears either. Like it or not, there are people on
this group who have done ML training, and there are certainly people with a deal more "quality
mountian days" and camping experience. You don't seem able to listen to these people and consider
and possibly take on their advice. Can they *all* be wrong?

With respect, they weren't there. I was - so I'm in a better position to make a judgement. Mistakes
were made - I'm happy to accept that, but one of the mistakes was certainly not not lying down in
some cold and wet hollow in a survival bag.

Phil Cook said:

Convection heat loss is due to air movement. Heat loss to the ground is something else altogether.
You would minimise that by sitting/lying on your rucksack, which of course in your case was back at
camp, oh dear.

Oh dear indeed - just as well we didn't lie down then.

BTW - I meant conduction not convection, sorry!

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, C L Imber
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

(Chris Street) said:

>If the instructor was suffering hypothermia, what she needed was a warm drink and warm dry
>clothing, not to lie down in a plastic bag in some damp hollow. While the poly sack might keep
>out the wind and rain it would make convection heat loss even worse.

Quoted message said:

Please tell me how you get convective heat loss from the top of a closed survival bag.

From the top by pools of water collecting - but the biggest convective loss is from the bottom.

You seem to be referring to conductive (the transmission of heat through a substance from a
region of higher temperature to a region of lower temperature) heat transfer rather than
convective which is the transference of heat in a gas or liquid by upward movement of the heated
and less dense medium.

OK - Sorry!

Quoted message said:

*Substantial summit* makes for more sense to me. 600m in the Highlands is not a substantial summit.

It can be... No nice Munro paths across the tundra on a lot of the lower hills. They can be jolly
hard work.... A 400m hill in, say East Sutherland can be a brute.

Or a full 600m ascent over Rough Bounds terrain from the sea...

Richard Webb

The message <[email hidden]>
from C L Imber <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

*Substantial summit* makes for more sense to me. 600m in the Highlands is not a
substantial summit.

So a candidate can get his qualification for swaning about on say the Chilterns and be seen as
competent to take his charges out on the Cuillins?

Oh yes and I take it from your remark that you have never tried Stac Pollaidh.

--
Roger Looking North over the Aire Valley (and Marley Gasworks) to Rombolds Moor Top Posters
killfiled on sight

AndyP said:

"Chris Street" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I can't understand people's need to know exactly where they are to the nearest few metres under
normal everyday circumstances.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Five finger gully and the summit of the Ben in clag spring to mind.....

Quoted message said:

It's not hard to find the well worn tourist path off Ben Nevis without resorting to GPS from what I
remember. And a fresh 2 foot covering of snow isn't what I meant by normal everyday circumstances.
Anyhow, surely knowing that you only have to press a button to tell you where you are which way to
walk following a series of predetermined waypoints deadens the spirit of the outdoors experience
somewhat.

Not necessarily. For example some people carefully refrain from reading the user manual of their
GPSR in order to make using it more exciting. Then when they switch it on on a fogged out summit to
find the way down they have no way of knowing that they'd left the datum set wrongly for British OS
and it's giving positions hundreds of yards in error.

Then there's the exciting signal reflection problems in gullies. And if you want to get completely
lost while following a GPS waypoint pointer, how about keeping it in a pocket, and stopping to take
it out and consult the direction arrow?

The GPSR is a very sophisticated instrument. It's simply ignorance and unfamiliarity that makes
folk think it takes the excitement of navigation away. There are dozens of really good ways of
misusing one and getting excitingly baffled and lost. And as a number of Mountain Rescue groups
have reported, you can also use your GPS in an emergency to send the rescue team to completely the
wrong place.

This nonsense about them taking the excitement out of getting lost only happens with education and
training, and it's not difficult to avoid that, is it? Just keep it in in your backpack until a real
emergency arises, then you can pull out the GPS and get really excitingly baffled and confused
whenever trudging nowhere in the cold and wet gets too boring.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
["]http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Quoted message said:

It's not hard to find the well worn tourist path off Ben Nevis without resorting to GPS from what I
remember. And a fresh 2 foot covering of snow isn't what I meant by normal everyday circumstances.

Pretty normal for Ben Nevis - Never had a clear path of there yet.

Richard Webb

AndyP said:

Anyhow, surely knowing that you only have to press a button to tell you where you are which way to
walk following a series of predetermined waypoints deadens the spirit of the outdoors experience
somewhat.

No.

For a start, just pressing a button won't do much at all, other than give you a grid ref.

As for pre-determined waypoints, you have to predetermine them in advance. That requires map study
and planning, which is a good thing anyway. In fact, I tend to spend more time studying the map and
planning these days than I did before I got a GPS, and consequently have a better idea of the lay of
the land of an unfamiliar area before I get there.

As for following a series of such waypoints, that's called a route. I'm not overly fond of routes,
they are restrictive. I prefer to enter useful waypoints covering the whole area. Even if I have a
specific route in mind, having lots of extra waypoints gives me the flexibility to alter my route as
I go. I often wander off course to have a look at something interesting that I've spotted or to
chase a photo opportunity, and after having done so it sometimes makes no sense to continue on the
previous route to I choose a new waypoint and modify my walk as I go.

The advantage to having all these useful waypoints pre-plotted is that I don't have to stick to any
predetermined route, I can modify it at will. And if I should do so in the dark or the fog I don't
have to faff around with map and compass to ensure that I continually know where I am.

The essense of traditional navigation is that you try to keep track of where you are (or at least
where you're going) at all times, but the beauty of GPS navigation is that you don't have to know
where you are. You can stop worrying about that aspect of it and easily get back on course no matter
where you wander and how bad the visiblity is.

So the idea of using a GPS to blindly follow a fixed route is a very unimaginative way of using one.
On the contrary, with a good selection of well-chosen waypoints, it gives you the freedom to wander
where you please and not bother about following any specific route at all. You use the waypoints as
references to keep track of where you are, and you don't even have to walk to them. You can use the
GOTO feature simply to tell you where a waypoint (reference point) is, i.e. how far and in which
direction.

GPS frees you from the restrictions of conventional navigation. It's a different way of navigating.
You don't have to follow arrows blindy, you can go where you want. It's a tool that can give you
reference points, not a machine that must be blindly obeyed.

Paul
--
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Phil Cook said:

Quoted message said:

looking for a route solution etc. The further out into the wilds the less accurate the OS
maps are.

I've not noticed any great inaccuracies. The GPS waypionts I place using Ozi on scanned OS maps
usually fall where I would expect them and the recorded track matches up pretty well with the hard
features.

Agreed. 25k scale maps are usually excellent, although the accuracy of 50k scale maps is a little
"flexible" to say the least (for reasons of scale and clarity - ultra-wide roads pushing other
features out of the way for example).

They mostly trace from aerial photographs these days, don't they? So most features should
be bang on.

Quoted message said:

Given the average grunt's intelligence that is highly unlikely. :-)

Grunt's don't need intelligence, they just need to obey orders. It's the leaders who need
intelligence (in more ways than one).

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In 20 yrs time the compass will be as the slide rule or the logarithm book are to today, a bygone
curiosity handed to a grandchild.

Same with morse and signal flags.

Yes, but although this seems inevitable I do wonder about the reliance on electronics. While short
term trips into the wilds aren't a problem, any kind of extended stay will result in battery
problems. No matter how many you take, they will run out eventually, so unless some amazing battery
technology is developed (where a GPS battery will last for 5 years of continuous use for example),
there's always going to be a problem in that area, which may require some kind of non-electronic nav
method to remain in force for a long time to come. Dare I say it, a compass?

Paul
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Phil Cook said:

Quoted message said:

In 20 yrs time the compass will be as the slide rule or the logarithm book are to today, a bygone
curiosity handed to a grandchild.

Same with morse and signal flags.

A point about morse - my instructor noted that you may only ever need to use morse once in your
lifetime - but if you need it they you will *really* need it. I suspect that they same will come of
the compass before too long but it doesn't mean we should stop learning how to use one.

Quoted message said:

I would like to think that I can use either compass or GPS to fall back on should the other fail.
Aircraft and vessels at sea have to have multiple redundancy but it gets a bit heavy when you have
to carry it.

Can anybody tell me any good hills to walk up in Scotland.