Chris - I think your posting crossed with my last one: further inspection did in fact reveal Foxes Tarn, even though it had seemed to be invisible to two of us on Thursday evening!

Yes, I think our posts did cross. Overall I much prefer Harveys maps for all types of navigation. So much so that I only use OS maps for areas not covered by Harveys, and then I prefer the 1:50,000 to the 1:25,000 maps. I've often used Harveys 1:25,000 Cairngorms map in blizzards and white-outs and feel I can rely on it completely. Of course I am now very familiar with it!

The only thing with Harveys is the 15m contour interval which does take a bit of getting used to especially if working out timings. But of course it does mean there are fewer of them which combined with the "colour scheme" used by Harvey makes them much clearer than OS.

Well that's interesting and worth knowing, thanks. I'm not the most competent navigator in the world (understatement of the decade...), and readily defer to your much greater experience.

Good job I've put my name down for two navigation courses in the space of the next 3 months, then! :-)

I think with any map it's always a question of getting used to the style. A strange map is usually slightly awkward to use at first. I've used OS and Harveys maps so many times that I don't really have to think about them. On the GR20 on Corsica I had to study the maps a while to see how they worked - not that we needed them, it was just to gain an overview of the surrounding areas.

I used to do mountain marathons and I have taught navigation (in Norway in winter). There's nothing like running round the Lake District hills in the mist looking for hidden checkpoints (I remember one was high on the southern slopes of Scafell Pike) to sharpen navigation skills. And teaching it means you have to work out and explain what you're doing.

The weird thing is, I'm actually really enthusiastic about the whole idea of navigation :) I love the idea of developing a real facility with map and compass, and being able to rely upon them in order to find my way in hostile conditions.

Unfortunately, though, I seem to have a facility for making truly stupid errors: for instance, I'll go straight on when the map clearly shows a 90 degrees turn to the right, or I'll forget to check wehther a slope is meant to be going up or down. Most of the time it doesn't matter, and I've managed to find my way to the places I wanted to go to, at the end of the day, but I've certainly added more than a few unnecessary miles in along the way.

It's in thick mist that I feel my lack of confidence in micro-navigation most. Istm that it's not until it's no longer possible to see the path that it becomes clear just how much we actually rely upon being able to *see* where we're meant to be going. In the Lakes this week a pal and I seemed to spend most of 2 days walking in frustrating circles, unable to find a path/the right path. It struck me at the time that the difficulties we encountered put your achievements in navigating all those uninhabited parts of N. American into a much clearer context!

<fx: bows before Master Navigator!> :-)

Actually, navigating the remote areas of North America wasn't that difficult because it didn't matter exactly where I was! At times I couldn't have given my position to within a mile, sometimes much more - this is hardly micro navigation! If I found a dangerous barrier - steep cliff, fast deep river or whatever I simply found a way round it even if it meant going miles the "wrong" way. I sometimes walked up a valley only to find I couldn't climb out at the end and had to retreat many miles to find another way. There were few paths so trying to locate or follow them was a waste of energy. More important was to work out whether it was easier to follow a river bank or climb up the hillside and traverse above the dense vegetation below. I rarely used a compass on those walks, other than to check I was roughly heading north when the sun was hidden and to check where the sun would rise so I could camp where I would catch it early in the morning.

Where I really learnt to navigate was in mist in the Scottish hills, especially when snow covered. I then refined these skills leading ski tours in Norway, where we sometimes skied in thick mist for days at a time. Working out where to leave a large frozen lake when you can't see the shores can be tricky!

These days a useful confidence booster, which didn't exist when I learnt to navigate, is a GPS. Having one in the rucksack means you can usually get a grid reference if you really are unsure of where you are.

Generalising a bit from the last couple of comments, one of the most frustrating things you can try to do with a map and compass is to follow a path. Paths just don't do what they're supposed to, and OS maps are especially difficult.

The OS are a little bit sidetracked by officialdom and those friendly-looking red or green dotted lines on E&W maps often bear no relation to the path on the ground.

It's another reason for trying Harveys as they do map actual paths as well as the ones that only exist in the minds of local government officials.

Shirl

GPS is absolutely brill for helping in the thick mist. Recently I was benighted in thick mist at the edge of the Black Ladders. I knew where I was to within 50m, but had no idea I was so close to a precipice. It was only by examining the ground and some local knowledge that made me aware. Whipping out the GPS I got my grid ref and to my horror realised that the edge of the world was about two metres away.

So how did I get out of it? Using the ref from the GPS got out my trusty map and compass, set a bearing and within a few minutes I was back on course. The compass on the GPS was almost next to useless as it kept changing where North was supposed to be! There was something very comforting about the Silva piece of plastic.

I believe that the situation I was in was extreme and without the GPS I'd have had stop exactly where I was and wait for weather and light to improve. The very fact that I reverted to map'n'compass has only reinforced my deteremination to get navigation right.

Ian

You've just proven how the Electronic Compass on the Geko 301 makes it a valuable addition to the 201. It's amazing how many times I've seen it dismissed as a useless gimmick.

Well I've just ordered two 1/25000 Harvey maps from Needle Sports simply because you have pricked my curiosity. The fact that they are waterproof without being covered in bulky and stiff plastic laminate appeals to me.
Can anyone recommend a good, truly waterproof map case. After last weeks debacle in the BBNP in driving rain and mist my home printed memory map route was completely washed away and my map case looked like a half full platypus hydration bag. I usually laminate my A4 route maps but I didn't have time last week. My laminated OS 1/25000 had to come out but it was so cumbersome to use in the blustery conditions. Oh and somehow I put the wrong OS prefix in front of my GPS waypoints (never done that before) so my GPS was directing me in completely the wrong heading. That was soon remedied but I had only had time to put in half the route waypoints anyway.
Still my number one son and I boyh enjoyed it, honest.
By the way can you tell me how Needle Sports can charge less for Harvey maps than the official website AND give free post and packaging?

Ian - agree completely with on use of GPS in such circumstances - have done so myself simply to get an exact location even though I've known where I was. Like you I would also not trust any GPS compass - you really do need to use a "proper" compass and map to navigate.

Macsen - you can't go wrong with an Ortlieb mapcase. Also worth thinking about getting the A5 one rather than the A4 one. Much easier to use ie you can easily get it in a jacket pocket.

Thank you Steve, it's what my son said but I like to hear a variety of opinions before I make up my mind.

Macsen - as Steve says, the mapcase to get is by Ortlieb. They're simply the best on the market: one of the best bits of kit in existence, IMO :)

Ian - in fact, the experience I've just had in the Lakes really opened my eyes to the value of GPSs. We both had one, but I've really only ever used mine before in order to get a GR: I've not really walked on a waypoint. The person I was walking with showed me how to do it, though, and that's eventually how we found the path down to Foxes Tarn (second time round...) Having now experienced virtunally nil visibility in fading light, in a dangerous place and with an exhausted and bordering on mildly hypothermic companion, I'm going to make sure that I fully understand how to get the best out of my GPS next time I go out! I can't help feeling that the people who decry the use of GPSs as 'cheating' must simply never have actually been in the sort of situation where they're really needed.

OK guys. Then Ortlieb it is. Thanks.

My son has had a GPS of one sort or another since they resembled bricks and he's only ever used them to record track logs or take a fix. He was curious about its use in following a route. I have played with it that way myself so I took mine out last week and once I got over the error of entering the wrong OS prefix it all went swimmingly (it was THAT wet). As I said though I only had half the route loaded so we had to use M&C plus GPS marking to give us a reference a couple of times.
I don't usually use my GPS to follow a route but I often load it with several waypoints in case I want or feel the need to use it that way.

I think the people who describe the use of GPS as "cheating" (which could of course apply to the use of any modern gear - Coleridge did not have a Silva compass, Gore-Tex, fleece, rubber soled boots or anything else modern) are those who are very experienced in map and compass use so they don't need it. On the mountain marathon I mentioned earlier we ended up descending from Scafell in dense mist via Foxes Tarn and then traversing on an old climbers path below the crags to Mickledore so we lost hardly any height. It was too wet and windy and we were too unsure of how hard it was to risk Broad Stand.

I usually carry a GPS but rarely use it because I'm so used to map and compass. In fact the last time I used one when it reallt made a difference was on a ski tour in Arctic Sweden a few years ago when we were having problems finding a summit in a white-out (we needed to find it to be sure of a safe way off as there were glaciers and very steep slopes in places - the maps were 1:100,000 and not quite detailed enough for precise navigation). However I sometimes use it just to make life easier - finding camp when descending from a summit as it grows dark for example.

However I'm sure that if I was learning navigation today GPS would be a central part of it, just as an orienteering compass was when I learnt to navigate 30 years ago.

Oh, and Ortlieb map cases are superb.

PW - Agree with you that GPS very useful to get a GR and having it in your rucksack is very reassuring. I'll be honest I've never used mine for walking to a waypoint or planning routes either and have no intention of doing so - it's just good to know I can get an exact location if required.

I think the problem occurs not so much with people thinking using a GPS is "cheating" as being too dependent on them. Even when your GPS tells you exactly where you are you still need to be able to navigate with map and compass. But with the range of features available on the top end GPS units there is a danger that people are being lulled into a false sense of security.

And as I think Ian will testify a GPS will tell you where you are but won't tell you where the cliffs are! And a map and Silva compass don't need batteries ;-)

My trip to the Lakes this week, though, really did seem destined to become the trip from hell. My Silva compass actually packed up and stopped working on Thursday. It's a sighting compass, and the arrow began to stick and eventually wouldn't work at all. I'm not sure what the problem was, but I think that the plastic housing in which the arrow sits (dunno the technical term) may have moved somehow. I'm not sure how, since I didn't have a fall, but I wonder wehther it might be because I had it in the hipbelt pocket of my Atmos 50, which was on a slight bend (i.e. my hip).

Anyway... whatever the cause, the point is that even a compass can fail in the hills. Next time I'll be carrying a spare...

Sighting compasses are more fragile than non-sighting ones in my experience. Over the years I've had a couple of sighting compasses jam. Standard compasses such as the Silva Type 7 are pretty tough unless you hit them with something.