1-DAY CONTOUR NAVIGATION COURSE YORKSHIRE DALES
With Mark Reid FRGS – author of ‘The Inn Way’ guidebooks & Mountain Leader
1-day Contours & Landform Navigation Skills course in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, with Mark Reid.
This 1-day course will introduce you to the key hill skills needed to navigate across hills and open country using contours as the prime method of navigation – contour interpretation and how they relate to landform. We will also look at appropriate compass use, from setting the map to ‘quick’ bearings and ‘full’ bearings.
This course is suitable for people who already have some navigation skills and wish to develop these skills further. It is ideal for experienced hillwalkers who want to relate map contours with landform, a refresher for NNAS Bronze and Silver award holders or those working towards their NNAS Gold award or ML assessment. Or maybe you just want an adventurous day out on the hills…
We will spend the day getting to grips with contours, so we can relate map contours with landform, slope angle and slope aspect, and tie this in with compass work to allow you to navigate across the hills away from paths using contours and landform.
UNDERSTAND AND VISUALISE CONTOURS
- Shape of the landscape – knoll, saddle, valley, spur, shoulder.
- Angle of slope (steepness) – what is too steep?
- Slope shapes – convex, concave, uniform & composite slopes.
- Height and depth – what’s going up & what’s going down.
- Slope Aspect & Contouring – direction of slope.
- Contour Strategies – break of slope, fall line, handrails, area features.
- Compass use to back up your contour navigation.
- Various scales of map: 1:25k, 1:40k and 1:50k.
- Explore further, with confidence.
OUTLINE OF THE COURSE
Pre-course: Unlimited access to our online video tutorials. Watching these videos before the course will allow us more practical time outdoors, and allow you more time to absorb concepts and skills.
- Understanding Contours
- How & When to Use a Compass
- Understanding OS Maps & Symbols
- Navigation Strategies
9:30am: Meet at a village car park in the Yorkshire Dales (with facilities)
9:30am – 4:30pm: Full day’s contour navigation training in the Yorkshire Dales. The walk will usually cover between 6 and 8 miles over the course of the day, with plenty of rest stops and time to practise skills and ask questions.
4:30pm – 5pm: De-brief back at the village.
