TR: Nav refresh on Llantysilio Mountain

Judith said:

I went to my standard no-brainer start point - the Ponderosa Cafe at
the Horseshoe Pass. Usually this place is heaving, but it's quite
empty at 4pm on a rainy schoolday.

My plan was to go for a walk and NOT use my GPS. All navigation was
to be via map, compass and common sense only. The GPS was on and
recording a track but I resisted the temptation to peek.

Good idea - I sometimes do it the other way round and forget the map &
compass and just use the GPS and a waypoint for the target summit.

Quoted message said:

For those of you interested in trig points, or those who believe that
I never do hills, there are two photos at:

http://hometown.aol.com/goofif/moel_morfydd_trig1.jpghttp://hometown.aol.com/goofif/moel_morfydd_trig2.jpg

Just for the record that's a Dewey.

Really enjoyed your honest report.

Cheers David.
--
Last hill - Chwarel y Fan 680m 2,228ft - and a very fine one, at
that!
http://www.fenrunfellwalk.co.uk

"Judith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I don't intend to give up my GPS, but today was a good refresher and
boosted my confidence that I probably could get by without it if
necessary.

Judith

Good on you Judith. I'm waiting for ALDI or NETTO to start selling them at
10 quid before I indulge. There's also a camera I want on Amazon that's come
down 40 quid while I've been procrastinating so it's no bad thing not being
able to get off one's [censored] so to speak and make the purchase.

I remember getting to the top of Craig Mhadaidh once which involved a
certain amount of 'wherethe'ellarewe?' but I got there anyway and felt much
better for it. GPS? pah!

Graham

Judith said:

As the weather was dreadful today, I thought I'd take the afternoon
off work and go for a walk. I'm not a great fan of Summer, but the
wind and driving rain looked quite beguiling!

Nice one Judith! Now where can I get that kind of motivation from?

Quoted message said:

My plan was to go for a walk and NOT use my GPS. All navigation was
to be via map, compass and common sense only. The GPS was on and
recording a track but I resisted the temptation to peek.

It's been a while since I've done that. I really must try that again. Sounds
like fun.

In fact, I didn't take my GPS on my Porth yr Ogof trip a few days ago, but
there wouldn't have been much point underground! Nor did I use a map and
compass. Has anyone ever tried to navigate with map and compass in a cave?

Quoted message said:

Within half an hour I had lost the path that was marked on the map.
It just fizzled out in the bracken and the visibility was quite bad,
so I could not really work out which direction I was supposed to go
in. Usually in this situation I have a quick look at the GPS and then
use my compass to head back to where I should have been. However, as
I had deliberately put the GPS in the top of my pack where I could not
reach it, I had to work out my position for myself. I was slightly
confused by some of the lines on the 1:25k map; I thought they were
walls, but the lines did seem to match up with fences and I soon
realised where I was in relation to fence corners that I had passed.

I worked out which direction I needed to walk in if I was to get back
on my path but it was disconcerting that I could not see the lie of
the land because of the low cloud. All of a sudden the wind blew a
huge gap in the cloud and I could see that the land in my planned
direction did match up with what I saw on the map, so I was much
happier that I was in the right place.

This now-you-see-it-now-you-don't situation carried on throughout the
walk and meant that I had to pay attention to any features around me.
I was walking on paths, but the sort that can disappear or be confused
with a neighbouring path.

Wasn't this sort of thing completely normal years ago?

Quoted message said:

I only covered 7.5 miles (12km) in 4 hours but I did spent quite a bit
of time checking my position.

Still faster than me!

Quoted message said:

I don't intend to give up my GPS, but today was a good refresher and
boosted my confidence that I probably could get by without it if
necessary.

Course you could. Didn't we always?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Porth yr Ogof Pothole
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/porth-yr-ogof-pothole/

Paul Saunders said:

Quoted message said:

I don't intend to give up my GPS, but today was a good refresher and
boosted my confidence that I probably could get by without it if
necessary.

Course you could. Didn't we always?

Yes.

I only bought a GPSr because of a terrible time on Bleaklow when I
just did not have a clue where I was. I had lost the path and was
stuck in peat groughs. In those days I always stuck to the paths, but
there were no features I could triangulate from to work out where I
was. Nowadays I would be happy to walk in a straight line
cross-country, but back then I felt I had to get back to the path but
I didn't stand a chance of finding it.

As the A628 ran east to west to the North of me, I just walked North
until I reached it and/or the reservoir.

A GPSr would have been helpful in that situation, especially if I had
put in some waypoints before hand, but I did eventually arrive at
Crowdon in Longendale YH so it wasn't essential!

Judith

In message <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I only covered 7.5 miles (12km) in 4 hours but I did spent quite a bit
of time checking my position.

Still faster than me!

Ah, but Judith is young :-)
--
Bill Grey

"Judith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

As the weather was dreadful today, I thought I'd take the afternoon

Very good 'interesting' outing by the sounds of it Judith! As always, GPSs
are good ....... but only as good as the signal and power availability
........., oh! and correct use.

I like to enjoy both sides of the navigation, be it map & compass or GPS.
Even though I often have the route on my GPS, I do constantly look at the
map to match features. OK, not particularly easy in poor vis, but ups and
downs/ traverses/streams can be used. Although I have Topo mapping on my
Garmin, I still spend more time looking at the paper map than the electronic
map.

--
Sandy Saunders @ www.thewalkzone.co.uk
'Mountains or Mole Hills, summiting
still brings the same excitement!'

sandy saunders said:

Very good 'interesting' outing by the sounds of it Judith! As
always, GPSs are good ....... but only as good as the signal and
power availability ...

Which is there 99% of the time in my experience. :-)

......, oh! and correct use.

Which goes without saying...

Quoted message said:

I like to enjoy both sides of the navigation, be it map & compass or
GPS.

It's been a long time since I've done the former.

Quoted message said:

Even though I often have the route on my GPS, I do constantly
look at the map to match features.

Really? I almost never do.

Quoted message said:

OK, not particularly easy in poor
vis, but ups and downs/ traverses/streams can be used. Although I
have Topo mapping on my Garmin, I still spend more time looking at
the paper map than the electronic map.

Really? I'm shocked. Tell you what, as an experiment, why don't you try to
do a walk relying on GPS alone, never looking at the map or compass, as a
contrast to the map and compass but no GPS type experiment?

You do the former, I'll do the latter sometime.

I'm wondering if the terrain we walk in has something to do with our
different approaches? Since I usually walk in wild hilly country, I find
contour lines alone to be extremely useful, almost to the exclusion of
everything else, whereas in your case, perhaps field boundaries and suchlike
are more useful?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Porth yr Ogof Pothole
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/porth-yr-ogof-pothole/

Paul Saunders said:

I still spend more time looking at

Quoted message said:

the paper map than the electronic map.

Really? I'm shocked. Tell you what, as an experiment, why don't you try to
do a walk relying on GPS alone, never looking at the map or compass, as a
contrast to the map and compass but no GPS type experiment?

You do the former, I'll do the latter sometime.

I'm wondering if the terrain we walk in has something to do with our
different approaches?

Perhaps it's because one of you has an unhealthy fascination with
techno-geeky things?!

:-)

Judith

Judith said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I don't intend to give up my GPS, but today was a good refresher and
boosted my confidence that I probably could get by without it if
necessary.

Course you could. Didn't we always?

Yes.

I only bought a GPSr because of a terrible time on Bleaklow when I
just did not have a clue where I was. I had lost the path and was
stuck in peat groughs. In those days I always stuck to the paths, but
there were no features I could triangulate from to work out where I
was. Nowadays I would be happy to walk in a straight line
cross-country,

So the GPS has given you more freedom. It's expanded your options and
liberated you from merely following paths.

Quoted message said:

A GPSr would have been helpful in that situation, especially if I had
put in some waypoints before hand, but I did eventually arrive at
Crowdon in Longendale YH so it wasn't essential!

Few things in life are essential, like going out walking in the hills for a
start! I've done walks without map and compass, so they're not essential.
Neither are waterproofs, you can just get wet instead. Nor are cars, you
don't have to go out, or you could walk, or hitch-hike or catch a bus.

Life is 99% full of things which aren't essential, but they're very bloody
useful! :-)

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Swansea Valley Clouds
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/swansea-valley-clouds/

Judith said:

Quoted message said:

I'm wondering if the terrain we walk in has something to do with our
different approaches?

Perhaps it's because one of you has an unhealthy fascination with
techno-geeky things?!

:-)

Perhaps, but why did you have to put the word "unhealthy" in there? There's
nothing unhealthy about using a GPS. If I'm using it then I must be out
walking! And that's a healthy thing! The unhealthy thing is sitting in front
of the computer all day!

Seriously though, I think Sandy walks in terrain which has lots of footpaths
through farmland, which is quite different to the open hills that I'm used
to. I'm sure that different navigational approaches are necessary/desirable
in these cases.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Swansea Valley Clouds
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/swansea-valley-clouds/

The message <[email hidden]>
from "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Few things in life are essential, like going out walking in the hills for a
start! I've done walks without map and compass, so they're not essential.
Neither are waterproofs, you can just get wet instead. Nor are cars, you
don't have to go out, or you could walk, or hitch-hike or catch a bus.

Quoted message said:

Life is 99% full of things which aren't essential, but they're very bloody
useful! :-)

Life is full of things that were not essential but are now. Even in my
lifetime what is normal has changed markedly.

On our family holidays in the 50s we travelled to the Lake District (and
elsewhere in England and Wales) by public transport and managed to get
round most of the Lake District from our base in Elterwater by bus.

Likewise rainware was rudimentary and I frequently had none at all
(finding a cycle cape more trouble than it was worth). On my feet
leather soled brogues with hobs were soon replaced with the baseball
boots (plimsols with ankles).

In the 60s (and presumably earlier) hitch hiking was commonplace and
just about everybody did it from time to time.

The only thing I can't admit to is walking in the hills without a map
and compass in the party. However I doubt very much whether most walkers
today would be satisfied with the then ubiquitous 1".

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.

Roger said:

Life is full of things that were not essential but are now. Even in my
lifetime what is normal has changed markedly.

Though "normal" is not "essential". But the terms do often sometimes
seem to be confused. So while it is "essential" to have map and
compass, I imagine it's still often the case that gamekeepers and upland
shepherds who know their patches perfectly well without either will
typically wander around without them.

Quoted message said:

On our family holidays in the 50s we travelled to the Lake District (and
elsewhere in England and Wales) by public transport and managed to get
round most of the Lake District from our base in Elterwater by bus.

Just spent 2 weeks in Norway on a walking holiday. We didn't have a car
with us, seemed to do okay. No shortage of foreign walkers in Scotland
who manage without their own car.

Quoted message said:

In the 60s (and presumably earlier) hitch hiking was commonplace and
just about everybody did it from time to time.

Got us to our trailhead in Norway a couple of weeks ago... I've hitched
quite a few rides into the wild over the years, either local ones "back
to base" or a whole trip.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

sandy saunders said:

I like to enjoy both sides of the navigation, be it map & compass or
GPS. Even though I often have the route on my GPS, I do constantly look
at the map to match features. OK, not particularly easy in poor vis,
but ups and downs/ traverses/streams can be used.

There's an amazing amount of info that is often just not used. I've
said it before, and I'll say it now and I'll almost certainly say it
again, but if you want to get the most out of a map (whether it's in
your GPS, on your PC or on paper) then orienteering is a very good way
to expand your abilities. Lots of local clubs throughout the UK, and
there's no need to hurry if you don't want to. Stick at it for a while
and I'd be /very/ surprised if your micro navigation and route selection
didn't get better.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Paul Saunders said:

In those days I always stuck to the paths, but

Quoted message said:

there were no features I could triangulate from to work out where I
was. Nowadays I would be happy to walk in a straight line
cross-country,

So the GPS has given you more freedom. It's expanded your options and
liberated you from merely following paths.

Er, no. I got older, I got more confident, I stopped doing what
people told me!

The GPS was/is simply a tool that takes away some doubt and allows me
to spend less time wondering where I am!

Judith

Roger said:

Life is full of things that were not essential but are now. Even in my
lifetime what is normal has changed markedly.

That's an interesting point. Cultural change also changes the perception of
what's "necessary". I mean, how useful is a car in the jungle? Or in the
Arctic? A computer isn't much use without a power supply, or a GPS without
batteries. Cars are not very useful without roads and petrol stations. But
when the infrastructure is in place, these things become so commonplace that
not having them actually means missing out on what most other people have.

So does essential simply mean having to have what most other people in your
cultural radius have got?

Quoted message said:

On our family holidays in the 50s we travelled to the Lake District
(and elsewhere in England and Wales) by public transport and managed
to get round most of the Lake District from our base in Elterwater by
bus.

I imagine that trains were great once upon a time, when there was a good
railway network, regular trains, and other transport options were limited.

Quoted message said:

Likewise rainware was rudimentary and I frequently had none at all
(finding a cycle cape more trouble than it was worth). On my feet
leather soled brogues with hobs were soon replaced with the baseball
boots (plimsols with ankles).

In the 60s (and presumably earlier) hitch hiking was commonplace and
just about everybody did it from time to time.

And of course that's changed too, due to our modern paranoid culture.

Quoted message said:

The only thing I can't admit to is walking in the hills without a map
and compass in the party.

Party? I never even had a party! It wasn't that difficult or dangerous
though, not on a bright sunny day.

Quoted message said:

However I doubt very much whether most
walkers today would be satisfied with the then ubiquitous 1".

I've always thought that a 1" would be significantly better than the
alternative, if the alternative was nothing.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Swansea Valley Clouds
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/swansea-valley-clouds/

Peter Clinch said:

Just spent 2 weeks in Norway on a walking holiday. We didn't have a
car with us, seemed to do okay. No shortage of foreign walkers in
Scotland who manage without their own car.

But do they manage to hitch-hike at 4am to get to a specific remote location
to photograph the sunrise? Not likely. I'm not saying that it isn't possible
to get around via public transport or hitch-hiking, but for getting to
specific locations at specific and unusual times of day, forget it.

Many of the best photographs I've ever taken would never have been taken if
I'd had to rely on public tranport or hitch-hiking.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Swansea Valley Clouds
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/swansea-valley-clouds/

Peter Clinch said:

sandy saunders said:

I like to enjoy both sides of the navigation

Quoted message said:

There's an amazing amount of info that is often just not used.

I take your point about orienteering, but Chris Boughay once made a very
interesting point to me on a walk once, during which he was training for his
mountain leadership thingy. He said that he was trained to just read the
contours, pointing out that anything else, like pools or forestry for
example, can change, but the shape of the land rarely does. It's the one
constant.

Given that my GPS is loaded with contours and little else (apart from
roads), they're often all I have to rely on in my little magic box, and they
do work very well indeed. Other details are interesting and useful, but
contours alone are very useful.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Swansea Valley Clouds
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/swansea-valley-clouds/

Judith said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In those days I always stuck to the paths, but
there were no features I could triangulate from to work out where I
was. Nowadays I would be happy to walk in a straight line
cross-country,

So the GPS has given you more freedom. It's expanded your options and
liberated you from merely following paths.

Er, no. I got older, I got more confident, I stopped doing what
people told me!

Okay, fair enough. So I misunderstood. Good on you!

Quoted message said:

The GPS was/is simply a tool that takes away some doubt and allows me
to spend less time wondering where I am!

Same here. I sometimes used to get confused and wonder exactly where I was.
Now I don't have to waste time doing that anymore. Saves time.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/
Latest Blog Post: Swansea Valley Clouds
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/pic-of-the-day/swansea-valley-clouds/

The message <[email hidden]>
from "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

snip

Quoted message said:

I imagine that trains were great once upon a time, when there was a good
railway network, regular trains, and other transport options were limited.

They might have been more frequent but is was a moot point whether they
were better. Part of our journey was from London to Windermere on the
Lakeland Express which we christened the Lakeland Snail on account of it
always running out of steam and arriving several hours late.

snip

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In the 60s (and presumably earlier) hitch hiking was commonplace and
just about everybody did it from time to time.

Quoted message said:

And of course that's changed too, due to our modern paranoid culture.

Well the A5 murder didn't help.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The only thing I can't admit to is walking in the hills without a map
and compass in the party.

Quoted message said:

Party? I never even had a party! It wasn't that difficult or dangerous
though, not on a bright sunny day.

I phrased it that way because when I was out walking as a child there
was only one map and one compass between us.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

However I doubt very much whether most
walkers today would be satisfied with the then ubiquitous 1".

Quoted message said:

I've always thought that a 1" would be significantly better than the
alternative, if the alternative was nothing.

Way back then I actually preferred the 1" to the newfangled 1:50000 and
even continued to buy them in preference while they were still
available.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.