UKC

Evening all

I’m just after opinions on this scenario.

My daughters nearly 18, and planning her first solo hillcamp next month, using buses and trains to get there.

Her experience is limited but she has been with me a few times and is sensible. 

We have come up with a good destination.

I know she’s nearly 18, but as a parent I still worry about other folk and not her camping alone.

She is taking my in reach.

Would you just let her get on with it, or, just nip up in the car and clandestinely camp nearby??

ta

dave

Yes, I'd just let her get on with it. Be a supportive parent rather than a helicopter one; think of it more as practice for you when she leaves home and will be doing this stuff anyway - probably without telling!

The chances of anything untoward happening in a remote location due to a stranger (assuming it's not in beer-slab walking distance of the road), is far, far lower than in a town centre.

Good on you for bringing her up to be sensible, and want to do this stuff on her own; she is obviously a confident young woman.

I let my now 16yo son bivvy in the woods with a friend on their own when they were 15. We did a recce together first to check there was phone reception where they were going to sleep, then I insisted he called me at any time during the night if they wanted to come home for any reason (or just be in contact). Maybe do something similar?

How far away is it?  How quickly could you get there if you felt you had to?  I suspect this is mostly about 100% understandable parental worry. It's got to be better than going to town on a Friday night, out late, drunks, etc etc.  Anyone she bumps into on the hills will be a like-minded soul.  

And top marks for good dadding!

If you want to eventually get found out and lose all trust in a big and probably irrecoverable way by all means, do the second.

Otherwise, no.  The important thing about this is not just that it's a new big thing for your daughter, but it's an especially new big scary thing for you; and it sounds to me like you haven't got your head fully round that.

You've brought your daughter up as well as you're able to and now you're doing the grown-up equivalent of taking the stabilisers off her bike and leaving her to ride it without them.  Let her go, be full of interest when she returns and never let a drop of your nervousness show.

No-one said being a grown-up was easy . . .

T.

I am with the others unless the site is in deepest, darkest Scotland and you are in Penzance. Even then I would, at most, book a nice hotel in the nearest town.

Thanks for the replies everyone, they were all sensible and kind.

I’m so proud of her. She has bought her own tent and it seems to be her chosen new passion.

I’m chuffed for her. 

Ta

dave

Paradoxically, when you can feel most spooked in a location, ie in a deep dark wood miles from anywhere, you are probably in the safest place on Earth. No people. 

Unless there are bears. Or spiders. Or both

Bought her own tent! Very impressive. My son has always just pinched one of mine, and still does.

Good for her. I teach lots of kids that age and I don't think any of them camp, let alone solo camp. Statistics say she's way safer doing this than going out on the town with alcohol involved. As long as you know there's phone coverage, I'd just tell yourself she's fine and can call for a hand if really needed. My oldest (19 then) went out last summer to camp on Kinder, but he was with his oldest mate who was visiting from Finland, and they were both lads, Oli had been off at uni already and Juppe was travelling after finishing his year of conscription (in which he had been trained in map reading enough to call in artillery strikes on targets not that far from where he was spotting!) - so it wasn't very stressful. I did wander up onto the plateau with them having given them a lift over, mainly because it was such a nice evening but after having laughed at the two engineering students finding putting up a small dome tent slightly complicated, left them to it. 😄

At a guess from your daughter's age, she's probably off to uni in a year so you can take this as practice for the sudden total lack of control you'll feel when she's away having to make all her own decisions! 

I trust she'll have a fantastic trip, and hope you don't stress too much! 👍

She’s just about a legally consenting adult and will be able to go off on here own soon enough without your legal permission- you’ve got to trust her.

My 16 and 17 yo daughters are off to a crappy music festival this weekend. I’d much prefer them to be heading unaccompanied into the hills (which they have done too). Will be spending the weekend car keys in hand awaiting the call.

I feel your pain Toccata

She is nearly back. Obviously I didn’t want to say when and where she was going, but it all seems to have gone ok.

i will get the full debrief hopefully shortly.

She saved and bought herself a Quasar after weeks of deliberation on the merits of various tents.

thanks a lot

dave

Well done that woman. 

Thanks Queen, I will pass it on

From what I gather she enjoyed it but would have preferred my company( feck knows why).

Reflecting so far, she needs to brush up her nav, which is difficult when she won’t listen.

I sent her up to Stickle Tarn as it has good public transport and isn’t in too far to retreat from with optional accommodation/return home plans.

The tent looked pitched well in a good spot, and she managed to cook and source water( that’s another tale).

There were a few tents up there with some noise issues but someone told them to shut up.

The bit I’m most proud of is that she gave up her seat to an old women on the Ambleside to Windermere bus.

Result

thanks

dave

Well as an old(er) who desperately needs the seat on the bus, double well done to her!!

Maybe there's somewhere she could do a nav course or similar with other younger people? Might enjoy feeling like she's doing it herself, so to speak. And when she's an adult there are groups like WAAC and I'm sure plenty others.

Great work anyway.

Thanks Queenie. 
I’d thought of buying her a course for her eighteenth, but I’m not sure that she would appreciate it. I’ll try again though.

Other than that, she is keen to camp somewhere different to where we usually go, so I will let her plan and guide me with a paper map.

She is work in progress

thanks so much

dave

If you break it down from a risk angle, the largest risk (which is still likely to be a very small risk!) from some problem person hiding in the other folk is probably picking up a wrongun on the public transport.  I’m sure we’ve all had runins of one sort or another over the years.

Think mitigation; she shouldn’t tell anyone random she meets she’s going camping alone or tell them her destination, and keep a subtle eye on anyone who moves with her from the penultimate bus/train to the last one and to be subtle about getting off the last one - not much notice rearranging oneself or pressing the button and if you have any concerns about anyone getting off loop at the same final stop, around the block or call in to a local pub/shop and make sure they move off another way.

Practicing a bit of counter surveillance is a great way to brighten up a dull journey if you don’t feel like reading a book.

(I’ll repeat - it’s a low risk indeed but no harm in practising a bit of care and it’s what I’ll be teaching Jr when she’s old enough to travel alone).

Yeah. I was full on that. I made her pack her tent inside the rucksack and gave her a cover story that If she must speak, then she was going to meet family in the Lakes.

When on the hill, to say her dad was camping nearby and observing, and failing that, a tentpeg in the eye

This is a good topic with some sensible replies. I've moved it to Hilltalk since it deserved better than Off Belay.

How much latitude to give teens on the hills, and at what age/stage of ability - a question we're increasingly asking ourselves as a family too. I'm sure it's something a lot of parents will ponder. Maybe it's one for an article. 

Living where we do (N.Scotland) I'm much less concerned about other people than simple terrain hazards, weather, getting wet, getting lost, lack of mobile coverage etc.

Our 12-year-old has been campaigning to be allowed to go out camping and climbing a hill with just friends and no adults. That's obviously too young. She's very sensible and competent for her age but nav skills and general hill sense are not up to it. The compromise we have reached in principle is that I go along and supervise at arm's length - camping within earshot but very definitely not next to them (she made that clear). We've yet to actually do it but I hope we manage to this summer as it seems a good halfway house and I'm very keen to encourage as much independence as sensibly possible.

Our 14-year old recently asked to go on a hill/bothy overnight trip with some friends. Again I went along, not least because they needed a lift all the way down to Deeside. They look a lot bigger and more capable at that age but I wasn't sure of the ability of her friends and I was certain she's still not reliably able to navigate herself around Munros. In the event they were happy to be fully supervised, and all decisions made for them, and that definitely felt like the right call. She would be up for more independence and as soon as she seems more able I'll be happy to let her branch out. I suspect that's still a couple of years away, assuming she's still keen by then.

Back in the 80s, at around 14 I was starting to go on decent hill walks in the Lakes and Snowdonia with a drop-off and pickup from a long suffering parent. They'd generally know my rough plans and eta but that was the extent of supervision. I'm sure they had no idea what things like Bristly Ridge and Jack's Rake entail, and nor did I til i did them. I wouldn't want my kids to be so clueless if they ever come to scrambling without adults, which is where taking them climbing is already giving them an advantage.

At 15 me and some mates did several overnight trips with tents or between youth hostels on things like the South Downs Way and random DIY routes in the Black Mountains and Beacons. I donlt think outr parents ever knew our exact route plans, more a 'call you from Brecon some time on Sunday' sort of arrangement. Different age. A few of us walked Cadair to Conwy over a few days one summer over all the hills I could feasibly add to the route. My very indulgent parents did the ferrying around, including rescuing us in two car loads from a pre-arranged rendezvous point (no mobile phones of course) in Cwm Bychan in pouring rain when it emerged that I had wildly under-catered the food and we were basically running on empty. We'd been lugging camping gear thus far but they persuaded us to go hostel-to-hostel for the last few days, which was the right call.

In hindsight I think we were pretty competent, at least by the end; certainly more so than my girls are now. I guess being left to get on with it and learn as you go does have some merit as a parenting tactic. But would I let out girls off the rein that far? Definitely not yet. Guess partly because I know a lot more about hills than my folks did. Gradually increasing their latitude in well-considered stages seems a better approach. If they remain keen, it's something I'd love to help them achieve. 

You have essentially described the DofE expedition process... It's the level of 'remote supervision' that is always the question. Modern youth provision is more cautious (as a consequence of bitter experience) than "in our day", with meetings and remote observation of some degree.

I didn't do DofE, but I remember a geography field trip where we were just dumped and left to get on with it for the day, to find our way to the collection point. We hadn't done any nav training, but I had been map reading from an early age...

Yes. If only our daughters' high school did DofE...

If you are looking to buy her a course I’m going to shamelessly plug my wife’s business www.runlikeahaggis.com it’s female led navigation courses (along with some other offerings) she has dates coming up in the Lakes and Hamsterley Forest.

Sounds like she had a good adventure and well done to you for supporting it.

I have taken a direct entry gold group from complete novices to capable of gold with a two-hour evening 'classroom' session, followed by a day with direct supervision and instruction, and two days increasingly remote supervision.

With suitably focused instruction, a good level of navigation skill can be acquired quickly. Teach a process to be followed, and techniques to use to follow that process.

I have a set of notes & little credit card aide memoire of four-step process, 6Ds and methods I use; you are welcome to them.

And then there's GNSS and mapping apps...

In terms of a navigation course perhaps suggest if she wants find and book one herself but you'll give her the money. I've found both my courses (nav and winter skills/nav) at Glenmore Lodge, and an informal refresher, were not just useful for nav but hill skills too. And it's all still stuck in my brain, just sitting there when needed - which is pretty miraculous as otherwise my brain is a sieve these days. It's not like a parent teaching you where there's too much history, or water under the bridge/etc. 

Well done her for getting out. 

And to you for letting her go, free to make mistakes. Hopefully she'll go out again, maybe somewhere less busy!

From a risk perspective the journey there and back especially parts involving road travel is far more likely for serious injury than walking and solo wild camping.

Now that we can add images...

It’s a tough one Dan isn’t it.

I came from a non hillwalking background and was largely self taught.

We did map and compass in the cadets when I was fifteen, but being in the higher streams at school, weren’t allowed to do Outdoor Pursuits.

Me and my mates would hike around the moorlands and Peak and between us muddled through.

The game changer was the Pennine Way in 85 when we were sixteen. We got dropped off in Kirk Yetholm to walk back. 
First day in and one of my mates had exposure by the old railway carriage shelter due to the weight of his pack and poor clothing.

We managed to get him in the shelter,, strip him and warm him up. A passing fell runner alerted MR and he was taken off. Somehow we ended up in Wooler the next day I think!

This was hopefully my last major nav error and incident.

Ive just about recovered from the anxiety of the last two days, but realise that teens need a lot of guidance and probably more than we think.

Hill safety is born of experience and guidance for me.

Dave

Thanks, the little card is great

That’s great! Thanks Captain

How do we add images now? 
cheers

dave

Teenagers already know how to navigate. They navigate everywhere in their daily lives, subconsciously, using all the techniques we think of as 'outdoor navigation'. That's my opening gambit.

The trick is to get them to realise this, and to apply those techniques. And to pay attention; that's the hardest bit... I usually try to tease the techniques out of them, rather than telling them; this encourages them to engage in 'instruction' better, and 'own' their learning (as it has 'come from them').

Once we've done this, I summarise and formalise with the repeating four-step process, the 6Ds, and how to use various techniques to 'stay on the correct path'. I have eight little cards to practice Direction/Distance/Duration and Passing/Decision/Catching Features to use on a rotating basis, changing each Leg, so participants get to practice.

That is a very clever tactic! Thank you.

I will try to employ it.

Im getting a sense of excitement now that we have our back room and table back, of Autumn evenings with us both planning a trip, with a map spread out, orientated to mag north

cheers

dave

The satnav analogy works very well; almost all of them are familiar with it. So you break down what it says:

In 200m, at the roundabout, take the second exit, marked 'Thistown'.

So you have distance, feature, topology, signs, all combined.

I don't actually bore them with the network-centric theory of navigation. But I do have a nice map with PRoWs higlighted on it (courtesy of Dorset CC's excellent 'Geowessex' website), that illustrates the network approach beautifully. In more remote areas, where PRoWs aren't so prominent, you have to apply your own 'network', based on prominent landscape features.

I would disagree that 12 is too young. I’d say her nav skills not being up to scratch is the issue.  I’d go wild camping in hills with mates aged 12. It was a non issue, as our skills were up to it.

That’s great, thanks Captain.

Ive just struck while the iron is hot,eating a chilli and watching a Black Crag, and she has disagreed with a course but accepted that I teach her! 
Game on. 
I’d best get my Langmuir back from my mum and dads!

Thanks very much for your input, it’s much appreciated, and the sat nav idea will correspond with her driving lessons.

Cheers

Dave

You're welcome to a copy of my navigation manual PDF; it's intended as an aide memoire for someone who knows how to navigate, to teach it. So bullet point notes and very few pictures. I wrote it in preparation for that gold group, as my first 'formal instruction', and has grown/been refined since then. I've handed out about 200 copies to members of the FB DofE Leaders group, with positive comments.

Pop me an email if you're interested, via my profile.

ps. Lots of books teach techniques. But I've not found one that teaches a process. For novices, the process is the core that we build techniques around. My four steps are very basic, seem obvious (which may be why no-one else writes about it...), but is what I came up with when I say down and asked myself how I navigate.

This is a great thread and it's reassuring to know there are still young people out there with adventurous spirit and parents keen to encourage it.

Your destination reminded me of the time I took my 15 year old son up Scafell, camping at Angle Tarn. When we arrived in splendid isolation, a man came down the path and asked if my husband knew where we were. He then told me he though we should leave because it wasn't safe for a child and a woman to be out on the mountain alone!  I'm an experienced qualified ML, not that it should have made any difference.

I reassured him that we could look after ourselves very well and in the unlikely event that anyone came up the path and attacked us, they'd be so out of breath we'd be able to run away/push them over!

Well done to your daughter and wishing her all the best in her future adventures.

This resonates strongly with me, and young people in scouting/DofE locally. 

There are a couple of subtleties. 

I think it's harder to navigate around here (South Peak/Derbyshire) than it is in N/Wales or the Cairngorms or the Lakes. Lots of fussy little footpaths and field boundaries and water and wood features in great detail, rather than sweeps of contour lines. Of course, around here you're less likely to die of exposure or score a £200 taxi fare coming down in the wrong valley. 

Yes - process ! Mine is just three... Direction (let's all face and look where we're going, awareness of the sun can save you ever needing to get a compass out...), Distance (are we walking two, five, ten or twenty minutes ? Shall we pace it ?), Description (narrate what you hope and need to see...) and Langmuir and the others don't give that. I like yours...

Concentration. Of course it's possible to nav following the process all day. Teenagers need a mental break in which they gossip along hands in pockets; it's not an orienteeting ultra-marathon (which it feels like to many of them.) So the trick then is when rapt concentration/the best navigator in the group is needed, and when you can judge to swan along and just grind out distance with Billy hopeless (we don't judge...) holding the map. 

I've found it harder to teach than to do... 

Y

I consider those as part of my 6Ds technique; Destination, Direction, Distance, Duration, Description, Decision. See my aide memoire card above. Though thinking about it, it is a bit of a hybrid between technique and process, or interwoven with my process.

I agree about lowland navigation; when I first started DofE in 2012, I'd just got back from a Scotland week. The leader said "oh, you must be a much better navigator". I replied that lowland navigation can be just as difficult, if not more so, due to the often restricted view due to hedges and woods, and, as you say, the maze of paths and field boundaries. Upland navigation is sometimes "there's the pointy thing; head for that". Coming down is often the harder part.

Thinking about how I navigate; the process I follow, and the techniques I use, in order to teach it, has made me a better navigator... But it's very easy to fall into the trap of not concentrating...

As you say, the secret to effortless navigation is to know when you can 'take a break', relying on a significant landmark to snap you back into paying attention; Step 4 'Find the next Decision Point' then takes precedence over Step 3 'Stay on the Correct Path'.

I think that depends on your skillset and your route. Navigating by the broad sweep of contours is only easy if you're heading to a substantial contour feature, are good at reading contours, or some degree of both. If you're more used to navigating in urban areas, or just bad at contour-reading, following fussy little footpaths with regular other features to triangulate from is probably easier to adapt to.