Discover Navigation

In July 2024 I attended a two-day Navigation course at Glenmore Lodge which was facilitated by a
very kind grant from The Neil Mackenzie Trust.
I’ve been a keen hill walker from about six years now. After being introduced to it by a family friend I
found myself hooked. Being outdoors, surrounded by nature and finding myself in places I never
knew existed was a wonderful feeling. Soon my family began to comment that they could see a big
improvement in my day-to-day mood whenever I’d been out hill walking, which was a big deal for me
as I’d experienced some mental health difficulties since my early teenage years.
As my love of hill walking grew, I became increasingly aware of my reliance on digital mapping /
tracking and I wanted to develop better navigation skills by learning how to use a map and compass
rather than rely on my phone. I had attended a one-day introduction to navigation course several
years ago, but foolishly I didn’t go away and practice what I’d learned so inevitably I soon forgot it all.
I found a two-day navigation course at Glenmore Lodge and with a very kind grant from The Neil
Mackenzie Trust I was able to attend.
There were three others on the course so the first day started off with group introductions followed
by looking at different types of maps, the makeup of a compass, how to get reliable mountain
weather forecasts and map contours. We then headed outside where we practiced orientating the
map by walking around a set of cones following the directions on the map. It sounds simple, but I
soon learned that orientating the map is vitally important. We then went for a walk around the
grounds by navigating to a feature on the map and talking through what these features looked like on
the map compared to what they looked like in front of us.
Pacing was the next topic which saw us taking a walk off the grounds and towards a local Bothy.
Once we had worked out how many paces we take over 100 metres and how long it took us, we
were then able to start to measure a distance between two points on the map and estimate how
long and how many paces it would take us to reach that point. Over a flat section of ground pacing
was surprisingly accurate, but when going up hill we found that it wasn’t as accurate and that timing
was more beneficial. As the afternoon went on we worked our way to the Bothy then up hill to a
summit. As we were going uphill we were being introduced to how contours feel under foot and
how we this can help us to know whether or not we are following out intended direction of travel.
Once we reached the summit the warm sunny weather gave way to cloud and rain. Thankfully we
were prepared for changes in the weather and could spend some time at the summit being given a
brief introduction to bearings and walking on a bearing. I say brief because it was nearing the end of
the day and we would be going into it in more detail the next day. We practiced walking on a bearing
going downhill and ended the day back at Glenmore Lodge for tea and cake and a debrief on the day.
The next day was spent entirely out on Cairn Gorm. Thankfully the weather was sunshine and clear
skies again. We started the day by using orienteering maps with numbered features and we had to
navigate to these features using the skills we had learned the day before. The whole day was spent
repeating these skills over and over again so that we got gradually more comfortable and became
more confident. It was a really fun day and allowed us to practice navigation skills and make
mistakes / understand them all while in a safe, controlled environment with a knowledgeable
instructor.
Two days might sound like a lot but the course absolutely flew past and I thoroughly enjoyed every
minute of it. I took myself out on a local hill this weekend to practice what I’d learned and thankfully
I was able to recall what I’d been shown!

I even found that I enjoyed the walk more than usual because I was spending a lot more time paying
attention to my surroundings rather than just following a track on my phone from one hill to the
next.
My future goal is to gain the Summer Mountain Leader qualification and this navigation course has
allowed me to begin to develop a skill which is fundamental to achieving this and this was only made
possible thanks to the generosity of The Neil Mackenzie Trust to whom I am immensely grateful.
Thank you so much!
Jamie