You ever been on a hike before?
Nice.
You ever been on a Dan Hike?
Yeah I thought not.
A Dan Hike is a rite of passage for anybody who goes on a hike with me. The whole idea is that we get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, get up somewhere with some mountains before anybody else, head up into those mountains, and get lost around 5 hours later. We tend to head onto quiet paths, where the grass is overgrown and we have to wade through some form of river.
Now comes the secret surprise.
The GPS on the phone doesn’t work in the valleys between the peaks, and the map you downloaded ahead of the hike got deleted when you accidentally got water all over your touchscreen.
Oh, and it’s raining.
So far, every Dan Hike has ended with 0 LOH (loss of hikers), and only one person has ever nearly cried, but there comes a time when you realise that you’re probably asking for trouble, and should learn how to hike without having to “see where this path goes and if not we’ll just turn around, ok?” – so learning navigation, a way to avoid getting lost in the mountains every again was obviously going to go on ✓ Project Bucket List.
Eventbrite, despite how jam-packed it is with entrepreneurial and spiritual spam, is actually a pretty good place to find interesting things to do. Have a think about something you fancy doing, but never have, then hippity hop over to Eventbrite and see if there’s anything nearby you can go to (see how I’m secretly forcing you to make a bucket list yourself?), and just rip the plaster off fast – book it.
In my case, I booked onto a course by Inspire Learning, a charity in Nottinghamshire that delivers adult learning, mostly through libraries. Map Reading in Practice, right by Major Oak, where Robin Hood and his Merry Men hung around. Starting nice and early in the morning at 9:30am, a group of 4 of us met up to learn how to read maps.
Two of those were founders of a walkers group, and another woman who was following a book from the 80s about walks in Nottinghamshire. She was reviewing the entire book by following each route, and checking if it was still accessible, ready for a rerelease (the new edition would have photos!). All interesting people who were interested in learning something new.
We started the course and the lovely lady running it started with the basics. And when I say the basics, it started from the absolute ground up. We looked at maps and figured out which way was north, and discussed how all maps will have north at the top. We looked at the scale and figured out how to measure distances and make guesses on time based on walking speeds. We spaced out grids and placed markers on different spots based on coordinates.
I mean, we really stuck the landing with learning from the ground up, we covered all the basics of what I, at the time, assumed was common knowledge. It’s been humbling to learn since that, no, everybody does not inherently know these things. I shut up pretty fucking fast when I spoke to a few people and realised I was sounding like a pompous know-it-all ass.
After learning about maps and plotting a route around Sherwood Forest, we stepped outside and were each presented with a compass and the maps we’d been working on. We were taught that compasses always point north, so you can use them to follow your map, and that if you want to head south, the red arrow has to point the opposite way that you’re walking.
Now, I’m a long time fan of Tristan Gooley, author of brilliant books like How to Read Water, and The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs. One of my favourite techniques that Gooley delivers is the use of the sun as a compass. The idea is that exactly 12 o’clock, high noon, when the sun is at it’s highest point, you can look at the direction it’s in (not directly at it), and assume that that’s directly south. Make sense? If it doesn’t, don’t worry, it takes a hot minute to get it.
Think about how the earth spins on its own axis. It spins in the same direction every day. That means that celestial bodies, like the sun, appear to move from east to west across the sky. Think about how the timezones work, Japan gets sunlight before England does, and England gets sunlight before America does.
Additionally, the sun’s closest point is the equator. At midday exactly, the sun is at it’s highest point, directly on top of the closest point on the equator to us. So, you know that if you’re in the northern hemisphere, and you look in the direction of the sun at midday, that’s where south is! If it’s very early morning and you see the sun rise, you’ll know that’s east, and if the sun is setting, you’ll know that’s west.
The reason I bring this up is that ever since I read Tristan Gooley’s work, I constantly try to navigate using the sun. It’s a fun little game I play. I look at the shadows and the direction they’re being cast, I pay attention to where the sun is, and it means that I know whatever cardinal direction I’m walking, as long as the sun is out! It’s especially easy in cities, where there are lots of solid shapes to get an idea on shadows. Try it, it gets easier the more you do it, to the point where it’s instantaneous. It also makes for a great party trick.
Anyway, back to the class. We stepped out into the midday sun, and were given information about how to find north using a compass. Then, we were given 2 minutes to look at our compasses and try and figure out which way was north. Because of the fun little game I play with myself, I already knew which way was north once we stepped outside.
Again, another humbling lesson as I helped the others figure out their compasses, that I’d already figured out some of the things we were being taught.
As we walked the walk, our guide told us tricks to navigate using our surroundings, things like look for how many junctions there are on the road, and look for hills and rivers to help you place yourself on the map. I had a lovely time on this walk, the people I spent time with were absolutely delightful, and we had plenty of laughs and chats about why we walked and what it meant to us.
She told us that in the future, they have an advanced map readers course, for experts, where they’d teach things like using mountain peaks to triangulate your position and following contours on hills to make the hike easier. And, as I walked, I had all those realisations that I’ve hinted at so far, I’ve done all of this already, I know all of this.
These advanced techniques she was referring to were solutions I’d picked up myself over my years hiking as ways to get out of tricky situations. Sure, I’d been lucky that there weren’t any really bad situations, or anything outrageously dangerous, but I’d essentially taught myself the bulk of what navigation is, just by getting out there and doing it, and making mistakes.
I’m in a very fortunate position where, as a big tall man, I can get away with walking pretty much wherever I want, especially through winding mountain trails in the middle of nowhere. I can go anywhere and reasonably not worry about something horrible happening, so I’m not suggesting that you just pack up a bag with a bottle of water and a cereal bar and go somewhere you don’t know. Be smart, you may not have the luxury I have.
I’m also in a very fortunate position where I’ve had the time and freedom to learn as I make mistakes. The Peak District, where I walk, is a particularly safe area, with marked trails and infrastructure like car parks and roads pretty consistently through the area.
Learning map reading and navigation was a humbling experience, namely because I didn’t realise how much I’d accidentally learnt as I went. I had taken a lot of that for granted, so the next time I took a walk, I had an extra level gratitude for the experiences I’d had!