Several of the earlier articles by Kev have contained errors but the latest is serioulsy misleading.
There are no contour lines nor is the scale indicated but as field boundaries are shown I assume that the latter is 1:25,000.
Crags are mentioned in the paragraphs dealing tith Attack Points but this term is not used on the key of Explorer maps. There are boulders, loose rock, outcrop, scree and vertical face/cliff. The symbol shown does not match any on OS maps but the closest is vertical face/cliff.
If this assumption is correct then, in my experience the terrain at the top of the cliffs is likely to be dry and not boggy as mentoned in the article.
If you take the route indicated from A to B you will walk a total distance of 2.75 kilometres.
It is 950 metres from attack point X to the bothy and we are told that you should walk on a compass bearing to reach the bothy. The simple truth is that you would be exceedingly lucky to find it in poor visisbility because nobody can navigate on a compass bearing with that degree of accuracy.
The correct method is to walk on a bearing and at the same time estimate the distance covered by timing and then employ a sweep or spiral search to find the bothy.
However, there is a better method that will take much less time. it is only 400 metres from where you leave the preferred route at the end of the vertical face/cliff to the bothy. Furthermore, the shorter route is broken up by the tarns into legs of approx 100 metres each making finding the bothy so much easier.
Which route would you prefer to take? The direct route which is approx 800 metres long or the convoluted shown which is approx 2.75 kilometres long?
No-one can doubt your credentials Hugh, but it strikes me that you may not have read the article in detail or studied the diagrams closely.
Why do you assume that the maps are intended to be at any particular scale or reference any particular OS mapping? They're sketches, wouldn't you agree?
The "boggy" terrain Kev refers to is clearly marked on his sketch map, at the bottom, not the top, of the crags.
Kev specifically says in the article that his example avoids taking a direct line from the base of the crags, partly because of its boggy nature.
Your other point about the difficulty of folowing a direct bearing over distance to something as small as a bothy is valid, though.
I don't think Kev's example is the best he could have used, but you've made too many assumptions, and some of your criticisms suggest that you've misunderstood.
Because Kev’s sketch is so deficient in clues we have interpreted the terrain entirely differently. You assumed that the route shown descends from point A whereas I believed that it climbed. Now, I readily concede that your interpretation is the more reasonable because it is unlikely that a bothy would be located in such an exposed position (I wondered about that at the time) but neither of us can be certain because contours are not shown and he has used both a symbol and a name (crag) unknown to the OS.
In order to demonstrate his point properly, Kev should have shown all the relevant information on the map using symbols and terms that can be related to those used on OS maps. The depiction of the ‘crags’ bears no relation to any rock feature on OS maps. Similarly, the term ‘crag’ is not in the OS lexicon except as a place name (as in Raven Crag).
The only boggy ground shown is between the two tarns although he states in the text that the terrain is boggy but nowhere does he indicate that this is at the base of the ‘crags’ (that is your interpretation of the sketch map!).
Throughout the series Kev has been using the Explorer map for his examples and in the absence of a scale it is reasonable to assume that a fictitious example uses the same scale. Irrespective of scale, his preferred route is almost 3.5 times longer than the direct route. I would prefer to pick my way through some bog using the tarns as tick features that would bring me within 125 metres of the bothy rather than follow his convoluted route ending up with a spiral search.
On the two most important matters we can agree. Kev chose a poor example for demonstrating the use of an attack point and it was very wrong of him to state that the bothy could be found in poor visiblity by walking 950 metres on a compass bearing. He should correct the latter point in the next article.
I can believe that Kev is an excellent navigator and a good ‘hands-on ‘ instructor in the field but his written teaching skills leave much to be desired.
