UKC

If somebody wanted to learn to read a map and use a compass, what book would you suggest?

My neighbours enjoy going on the hill but their navigation skills are practically nonexistent.

The only book I know is mountain navigation by Peter Cliff, which I ordered from Amazon but it’s taking for ever to arrive, if it ever does.

Maybe they've got lost and can't find your address?

Probably lost mobile signal or the phone battery died?

I might start here:

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/map-skills

If they're beginners in learning nav skills, the OS website has a page of basic guides, with a link through to slightly more advanced guides if they find the basics too easy.

https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/guides/beginners-guides-map-reading...

I like Carlo Forte's Navigation in the Mountains, but it might be a bit too detailed for what your neighbours are looking for, at least at the moment? Lyle Brotherton's Ultimate Navigation Handbook is another option, though includes stuff on nav for international destinations. Both include stuff on GPS which IIRC Peter Cliff doesn't. I can't check because I lent my Cliff to one of our MR trainees and never got it back.

If they're not up for self-learning, then an intro to nav day with an ML might be good option, or start on the National Navigation Award Scheme which goes from basic map-reading (Bronze) to ML level (Gold).

This isn't going to be helpful, but my 2 cents is that while knowing how to map read is still a useful skill, I believe that navigating with a compass at this stage is a bit like writing with a quill or drying your clothes with a wringer: Modern tech solutions require minimal training and will be better for almost every person.

Hence, I would suggest learning to interpret contours and map symbols should be the first priority and navigating with a compass a far distant second (if at all).

And that book is never leaving my house, even though I have not looked at it for decades. I did find a used copy on Amazon, or I thought I did.

My neighbours are young and fit enough to enjoy long hard days on the hill, but their navigation skills are limited to a mobile phone and simple apps.

Nothing beats a map and compass when the weather turns from Sunny to poo in an instant.

I agree 100% and have suggested that they get a 1:50 map of our local area and practice with that minus the compass for the moment.

I shall check it out myself and try to remember stuff.

I have also offered my neighbour all my digital maps using software that is 20 years old. The Memory Maps software is beginning to struggle with Windows 11 and has a few glitches but still works, mostly.

I initially bought half the country one year and my mate bought the other half a year later. Little did we know that OS would be gits and pull a copyright stunt which meant that if you bought maps one year then they could not be used with maps bought in another year.

That pissed me off until I solved how to crack that problem with a HEX Editor. We paid for the maps, legitimately, yet OS put massive blocks on us using those maps for copyright bullshit reasons.

As a nation we have financed OS since it was first started over two centuries ago, so I don't feel guilty one jot for finding a way to use maps that we paid for.

Weird. I also bought the whole country with Memory Map many moons back.

And I also have had zero qualms about finding alternative ways to continue that access. (though not the same way as you).

Our problem was buying the maps in different calander years. We got, and I still do to this day, copyright error messages saying that the maps could not be used for software from different years.

Why should that be a problem when the maps were bought legitimately?

The Peter Cliff book is excellent.

It might be worth mentioning to your neighbour that grid north and magnetic north and virtually identical just so an adjustment is not needed.

Dave

Get them to try a local orienteering course. Often found in local country parks. It’ll soon sharpen up navigation skills.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/ultimate-navigation-manual/lyle-brotherton...

The Ultimate Navigation Manual by Lyle Brotherton might be worth considering.

Or https://www.cicerone.co.uk/map-and-compass

Cicerone's Map & Compass

Start orienteering. Begin on the easiest courses where you are entirely on tracks and won't even need to use a compass to orientate the map to ground, then work your way up over months and years. There's no imperative to even a run, a precisely nav'd fast walk will often beat a poor navigating runner, but no one judges anyone anyway. One of the few sports where a 5year old, 80 year old and the worlds elite can all start or finish at the same point and time.

The booklet ‘know the game - orienteering’ is very good (circa £5)

Back in the 70s after having some rather incomprehensible stuff taught me in the cadets I took matters into my own hands with this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Map-Reading-Know-Game-Various/dp/0715802771  and never looked back, exept for back bearings of course!

If they want to get past the end of the road that's going to be a biiiiig map!

I think I had that too

Forgot about that. I shall mention this fun activity to them.

cheers

I loved finding local orienteering courses.

cheers

https://maprun.uk/

Here you go

https://www.goorienteering.org.uk/

I disagree that modern tech makes map reading and compass work redundant. Having a good knowledge of how to navigate using the old school methods makes using a phone map incredibly easy. If you don't know what you're looking at on the map, or how north works, then even the best mapping app will be meaningless. 

Trying to learn to map read on a 1:50k in an urban or semi-urban area is almost impossible. A 1:25k or smaller scale map will make much more sense.

If your neighbour is keen on the hills, then get them to find an in-person navigation course to go on. NNAS or BMC Hill Skills courses are usually very affordable, and there are plenty of other bespoke options or open courses out there too. There's nothing which compares to standing in the mountains and having someone who knows what they're doing explain the process and then coach you through it. 

Wholeheartedly agree. 

If people are clueless (and many are) them reading a book will probably not make a lot of sense. Get out there - on a course if possible - and have a go. 

Whether its an app or a paper map if you don't know what you're doing you will struggle. 

Probably the worst is people that think Google maps will work on the hills :/

Maybe give this a go?

https://www.mountain-activities.com/product-page/mountain-moorland-navigati...

Explains really well the techniques used whilst navigating.

EDIT: Noticed some are talking about courses which this guy also does he's a nice chap and knowledgeable if your in the south west area.

Maybe give this a go?

https://www.mountain-activities.com/product-page/mountain-moorland-navigati...

Explains really well the techniques used whilst navigating.

Just looked this up on a well know bookselling site: €2000 for the last copy ! Eek !

Link: https://www.amazon.fr/Orienteering-Know-Chapman-Macfadyen-Liddell/dp/B000W1...

I agree with this. Knowing what a map shows is like taking a blindfold off. To my mind, learning how to read contours is one essential piece of knowledge which even the most tech-addicted walker should benefit from. It's all very well following a dot on a screen, but that dot doesn't tell you if you're going up or down or flat, steep or gentle, and so on. A good map (and I wouldn't get too hung up about the scale) will tell you if you are going to be walking on easy grassy slopes, steep scree, through forest, or whether you are going to be in danger of walking off the edge of a crag. 

I have friends who are happy walking Scottish hills without any idea how to read a map, and they infuriate me with their repeated refrain of 'I can't navigate', as if it's just one of those things. Reading a map is a like skill which opens so many doors and can give a greater appreciation of the environment. 

I would also say that reading a map is an essential precursor to navigation. Learn to read a map first, and then move onto the skills required for navigation. Learning to read a map is a satisfying activity in its own right - being able to relate what one can see on the ground to what is on a sheet of paper, or phone screen, is the start of a new adventure. 

I maybe confused because nobody in this discussion has said that either technology, new or old, makes the other redundant.

Or is this one of those double negative statements that I can’t get my brain around?

In the past when I was in-person on the hill in thick fog, I came across a person trying to navigate with an actual postcard map of the whole Lake District on it. Most bizarre thing I ever saw.

5th post down.

Shameless plug here, my wife has a business teaching navigation skills, most folk find it easier to learn in person than from a book.

https://www.runlikeahaggis.com/

£60 for a one day course. She also puts on MapRun orienteering style events, one coming up in Guisborough at the weekend.

That Welsh kate or Henwardian?

I've read and re-read and I can't see where they are advocating modern tech over traditional map skills.

Welsh Kate suggested more modern books than my suggestion because they make reference to new navigation tools such as GPS, and only because Peter Cliff's book was published well before GPS was available to civilians.

And Henwardian made a very sensible comment, which I agree with wholeheartedly, that its is too soon for my neighbours to learn to read a compass. Learn to read a map first then compass to supplement that skill.

Still don't know what you are arguing against.

Are they wrong?

This is what I was referring too. I think modern tech isn't actually that helpful in the mountains if you've no idea of how what you're looking at and how that relates to the cardinal points. I think a map and compass work together and it's worth learning how to use them before moving on to a phone or GPS. 

We rescue getting on for hundreds of people a year in Ogwen who've used phones for navigation and it just doesn't work if you've no idea how the thing on the screen in front of you relates to the real world. Even with arrows and direction lines, people still get their navigation catastrophically wrong. 

I'm not sure that I agree with this.

Using a compass (and I differentiate between "using" and "reading") is an integral part of navigation. For instance, orienting a map to north is so much simpler and easier than identifying and aligning landmarks to the map for a novice.

My view would be that learning to use the compass and read a map are skills to be developed concurrently.

I don't agree. As Luca said, being able to read a map is important because otherwise you have no idea if your planned route from A to B is going to involve falling off a cliff or bushwhacking through impenetrable forest. But when it comes to orienting your map, I don't think this is an important skill any more because any phone or dedicated gps will let you take a few paces and see exactly which direction you are heading in. There really isn't a need to orient the map using a compass. Same goes for walking on a bearing for a certain distance to reach a certain point.

I would argue that there is also always a bit of a time element - taking a bearing (compass type, not grizzly type) in thick clag or, worse, whiteout conditions takes time and you need to be continually concentrating on picking out features you can walk towards, counting paces and verifying your position via tiny contour features... It takes quite a lot of concentration and if you don't have many years of experience in doing it, it's really hard to do reliably. Particularly if you are cold and/or it's getting dark...

I've heard the argument many times of "what if your phone/gps runs out of charge/breaks" but I don't buy this either. Firstly, if you think this might pose a serious problem, just take 2 devices. Secondly, I don't think modern devices are that prone to breaking and you have a pretty obvious battery level indicator. Thirdly, if you do suddenly realise the device is low on battery, abandon your planned walk and work out an obvious, safe and foolproof way back to safety (e.g. Decend into the bottom of this valley, when I hit the stream, cross over, go up the other side till I interect the path, follow the path down till I reach the carpark) then turn the device off while you don't need it.

My wife came across a couple walking up Fairfield on Saturday evening, she greeted them, and he said "is there a campsite up there".

Conditions were pretty grotty and they had no idea where they were going to camp.  She asked if they had a map "I have OS on my phone, but it won't work because it is raining".  

She tried to encourage them to camp at Grisedale Tarn, pointing out that the summit of Fairfield was a boulderfield with no obvious paths "but there is a path to follow?" they said.  

If one is going to have a phone which doesn't work in the heavy rain, then how on earth will they reliably set off in the right direction from Fairfield without a map and compass?  Also - because they didn't have the map, they had no idea what their planned route was - they just planned to follow the line on the screen and were incapable of comming up with a plan B.

I hope they got through the night without needing rescue.

I don't disagree (in principle) with anything that you say.

Nonetheless:

• A map and compass do not rely on a phone signal or a battery and are, therefore, useful backup plans for (the inevitable) battery/signal failure.
• Learning to use a map and a compass can be achieved in as few as a couple of hours and has the advantage of imbuing understanding of the principles of navigation.
• Learning how to interpret the map is actually quite a fun thing to do

I'm not advocating abandoning technology (I hope that I'm no Luddite) and I tend to use digital mapping more often than not nowadays; but being self-reliant on the hills is an important skill and I know how to use a map and compass to get me out of trouble if need be.

More to the point, MREW tend to advocate the same advice: https://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk/safety/ as do the OS (although, that might be a little more self-serving), https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/navigation-tips-and-advice-from-mount....

I don't think anybody at all in this discussion has suggested ditching map and compass skills for using a phone to navigate with.

In fact I am trying to stop my neighbours going on the hill armed only with a phone. And the contributors to this discussion have packed this up with books, advice and websites to improve navigation skills. 

A couple of contributors have mentioned advancements in technology such as GPS but at no time have i got the impression that they are advocating mobile phones and GPS devices alone.

I am interested in keeping my neighbours safe. I think you are looking for ghosts that simply are not happening in this discussion.

Lets stay on topic, rather than drifting off into the weeds.

I also agree with you. But people have to start somewhere. One way is to introduce people to a map and how to read the icons and symbols on it before introducing a device with a spinning pointer. Very soon after with a good teacher, it all falls into place very quickly.

If it's spinning, Dude; it ain't working properly!

I am mid consolidation period for a walking qualification, my spare time seems to be spent walking around fields with a map and compass in hand. 
I am really enjoying it,  it's a skill i always thought i had,  but now i can nav to features i would otherwise have not noticed.

Another plus side, i have found many small crags, and lovely boulders, in the middle of nowhere that i would never have found otherwise.

Yes, these people were being incompetent fools but it sounds rather like a lack of any experience or common sense is the problem, not a failure of the "navigate by phone/gps" ethos. If you are out in the hills, it is common sense that you'd be using a waterproof device (modern phones can all be dropped in river and come out working just fine after all). If you want to go and put a tent up on top of a mountain, it is common sense that you'd click on a couple of google maps pictures of the summit first to see if it's just a pile of rocks (of if you want to preserve the surprise, be ready to continue walking till you find an appropriate site). Learning how to use a compass is not really related to coming up with a plan B when you screw things up, I really feel that is a map-reading skill (and you can read a map just fine on a phone screen) and/or a proper prior preparation thing.

I won't argue against a compass being a useful backup but I would probably say a spare gps device is equally useful and easier to use correctly in very challenging conditions.

Might be playing devils advocate at this stage but it is worth considering that a compass has its own shortcomings:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/destinations/broken_compass_hillwalker_re...

Thread has several possible problems and I can say also that my bluetooth speaker has some nice magnets in it and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it would permanently magnetise the compass if they were next to each other in a backpack.

Also, phone signal shouldn't be important, only gps signal and I have literally never had that fail, irrespective of being in thick mature woodland or a narrow valley.

I'm not going to disagree but I think if you get into a situation where you actually need to do it (i.e. dark/thick clag/whiteout) and can't just orient and locate yourself using the map and surroundings alone then you'd want to have more than a few hours of experience to be able to rely on that skill. (though I suppose a few hours would be enough if it was a simple case of "walk on bearing of xxx plus or minus 10 degrees till you hit the road", that would be hard to screw up)

Definitely.

I can see why this is suggested - you can't really half-arse it. If you don't learn map and compass navigation correctly, it's pretty obvious and you can realise your own incompetence and know you need to work to get your skills up to scratch. GPSs and phones on the other hand are so user-friendly that they give you just enough rope to hang yourself with. Someone using a gps/phone alone is going to have a harder time recognising their own knowledge and ability gap.

Thats one form of bearing the other is to get the bearing from a map. You don’t always need a super precise bearing and super concentration, just enough to connect the various hand rails reliably. You can do bearings leap frogging each other if you need more precision. Quick, easy, and reliable.

Have you tried navigating at night?

Jolly good fun and just as challenging as navigating in mist or a white-out.

In reply to Trant99:

I'd steer well away from military grade compasses. I'm not trying to blow stuff up and there are too many markings around the bezel to make sense of if you are not trained to blow shit up.

Have you ever tried to use a touch screen in heavy rain + wind in the mountains. It just doesn’t work, doesn’t matter if it’s waterproof. Their phone was going to be f-all use in those conditions regardless of their competence.

No.

I like walking when it's dry and sunny

But I did use my phone with a wet screen and soaking hands yesterday and while I wouldn't want to text War and Peace, it still worked well enough to unlock with the spider diagram, and do more than enough basic operations to get a mapping app working.

I feel like I'm stating the obvious here but if you turn your back to the wind, keep the phone in an inside pocket, wipe the screen on an under layer... Is it really that difficult?

Maybe I'm not dedicated enough to mountain walks in foul conditions and a more specific gps that is designed for working underwater is what is needed if you like to wait for the storm of the century forecast and then plan a Cairngorm plateau traverse epic. If those are the conditions I am out in, I'm really just taking my phone out a minimal number of times to check I'm still on my beeline for the nearest path/road that leads to the car.

i have,  it's a skill i am still working on, but it's also something i find a combination of  difficult/frustrating/awesome

In a word, yes.

You don't need to be in a howling storm for your phone to play up. Even a tiny shower while walking the dog will screw up the display on your phone.

A phone is a good tool, and it is a tool that does many useful things in an urban environment where you are never too far away from society. However a phone, or any other touch screen device like a tablet or iPad do not play nicely in a hill environment when the weather can turn nasty at the spin of a coin.

You don't have to be dedicated enough to go hunting for mountain walks in foul conditions or wait for a nasty storm, and I'm stating the obvious here, but if you do go on the hill there is a reasonable chance that a perfectly sunny day can turn into your worst nightmare. And if your hands are wet, your clothing is wet from sweat, moisture and rain then no amount of putting your back to the wind is going to make your phone play nicely. That's the path to become a mountain rescue statistic.

In reply to GranCanaria:

Bot.

I was going to say something sarcastic. But then I looked at what GranCanaria has been up to since they registered.

And I agree with your one word reply.

Does this spell the beginning of the end of forums?

There does seem to have been a noticeable increase in them of late. But I don't think it'll affect UKC overall. 🤞

The Handbook of Climbing by Allen Fyffe and Iain Peters has a good section on map reading and navigation.

My own two penneth is that while compass navigation is a useful skill I have probably only needed to use it two maybe three times in 50 years. twice in a whiteout situation and once in heavy cloud on a plateau. A far more useful skill is being able to match map features with physical features.

I prefer the OS explorer maps as they tend to have more detail than the landranger (though obviously they don't tend to cover as wide an area) also come with mobile download. I use an ORTLIEB map case when out.

but, these are the times it's potentially life saving.(as I'm sure you're aware)

Indeed, this will often prevent the need to get a compass out. You can tell from comments online that a large number of people rely on not just worn visible paths, but only paths marked on maps and phone apps. You see questions online about how visible on the ground is this path between two hills etc...

I find reading a map on a phone screen really difficult. I still use my phone to double check location but find that most (phone) maps lack detail and it feels like looking at something through blinkers. A paper map gives me a better overview for deciding on a route without loss of detail. Often small tracks and detail disappear on a screen when you zoom out. Another thing I found as I get older is that I have to limit the amount of time looking at screens if I want to avoid a blinding headache. I think this relates to the brightness of modern screens

Phones are damned useful though and I like the fact that I can have a compass (GPS), camera, weather update, bird identifier, etc all on one device. Plus they can be useful in situations where you don't have a map. However i would never be out on the hills without a paper map. If dropped it doesn't break and it never loses signal or battery power.

Exactly! On all your points.

Often when walking (even in the UK) I am not necessarily following clear paths (its quieter that way).

When out in Sinai we found it important to do a reconaissance to find the way off the climbs we intended to do. There had been cases of people finishing a route only to get lost in the mountains trying to find their way down, occasionally fatally so. because of the slightly iffy military situation at the time GPS often didn't work