The Navigator's Dozen
The 12 most important mountain navigation skills.
These are all the skills needed to navigate in the hills (some of the skills overlap with each other). The underlined skills have pages with additional information.
- Setting the map
- Ticking off features.
- Contour interpretation
- Taking and following a compass bearing (in detail and as a rough guide).
- Estimating distance travelled by timing and by pacing.
- Route Choice Selection of features on the map which can be identified on the ground to create navigational legs along a route that avoids major hazards and is practical to follow.
- Relocation strategies - in case you lose track of where you are.
- Identifying “catching features” so that you will know what the ground will be like if you have overshot your target.
- Map scales and measuring distances on the map.
- Aspect of slope or direction of linear features.
- Aiming Off, Attack Points, Handrails.
- Symbols and Grid References.