Ben Bennetts: Navigating on National Trails

I’m an old-fashioned map and compass navigator. I’m not a GPS navigator, although I do possess an early Garmin unit. For me, reading a map and discovering which way to point my boots is part of the fun and challenge of walking.

However, there have been two occasions when I would have liked a GPS navigation unit in my rucksack.

The first was at the top of the Coast to Coast’s Lining Crag in the Lake District. The crag was covered in thick fog, with visibility down to around 20 to 30 yards and the trail was indistinct, so much so that we had wandered off the trail and become lost. It was impossible to retrace our steps; there were no distinguishing landmarks and, for a while, no other walkers to gang up with and pool knowledge and map-reading skills. All we could do was wait until someone came by which, fortunately, they did in the shape of two walkers both with GPS navigation units and both skilled in their use. We joined them and they routed us off the crag and down to Grasmere where the path became easy to follow.

Eventually, by walking in the right direction as determined by the map and steered by the compass, we stumbled upon an Offa’s Dyke waymarked boulder and were able to recover our bearings and identify our location. From then on, the walk was okay although we saw nothing of the ‘magnificent views’ promised by the guide book as we walked along the top of the ridge. Just a few straggly sheep and fog, fog and more fog.

I hate fog!