UKH

Having claimed on another thread to know Lochnagar well enough not to need a map just to walk up it and down it safely, I thought I'd test myself by trying to draw a map of Lochnagar.

It's an interesting exercise, trying to see how what's in your memory squares up (if at all) with what's actually there. The biggest thing that goes wrong is the empty spaces, which you tend to underestimate. In the case of Lochnagar, it's called Monelpie Moss, and it's a lot bigger on the OS map than on my onboard map. Turns out that there is a loch due south of Lochnagar summit, but it's not (as I drew it) Loch Muick: it's the Dubh Loch. Also, I remembered Loch Muick as pretty much a perfect oblong. But it's slightly banana-shaped.

And of course names go missing. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the next Munro east is called. It's Carn a' Choire Bhoidheach...

It has to be a useful exercise for navigation though, right--to try and draw a map of the area you want to navigate in? I wonder if people do this as an exercise on Outward Bound courses and the like. Maybe they should?

Right, now let's see how well my in-head software remembers the Ben, and the Cuillin...

In reply to Sophie G.:

I've memorised the entire 1:25,000 series OS maps and I've had a pigeon brain grafted into my nose, for navigational purposes.

In reply to Clauso:

Well done you! You win a Blue Peter Badge!

In reply to Sophie G.:

Can I swap it for some Harvey maps instead?... Memorising their 1:40,000 series is my next project. And I'm going to have myself laminated too.

In reply to Sophie G.:

I'm guessing your real name isn't Sophie

In reply to marsbar:

I'm guessing your real name isn't marsbar... on with the thread...

In reply to Sophie G.:

any time i try and draw a map from memory, the scale goes way off, its a useful skill to practice though thanks for the reminder.

I may just get sat nav installed instead.

In reply to Sophie G.:



I suppose if you're not going to bother with a map and compass then this is irrelevant, but the Munro to the east is Mount Keen. I think you meant west, which in that case is Carn a' Choire Bhoidheach

In reply to Sophie G.:

I can understand your exercise, but... I disagree. I cant see it being that handy unless (both) your maps get ripped from your hands by wind. If you're misplaced/lost I think your memory will distort your map reading and make the map fit where you 'think' you are etc... if you get my drift.

In reply to Jack Frost:

Doesn't mean her name isn't marsbar though.

In reply to markh554:


That's an interesting idea, though I wonder if some different set of events may unfold. A lost person with a memory map may throw the whole map out the window and declare they have no idea where they are, whereas someone with a paper map may desperately mismatch up features between the map and their surrounding, and declare they're somewhere they're not.

Something an interested scout troupe leader could do a small scale study on. Though everyone is different, I imagine a tend would emerge as we're not all that different.

In reply to Jack Frost:

Doh, yes. West.

In reply to needvert:

I think that in many situations we make the facts fit our hypothesis rather than vice versa.

Perhaps somebody supper confident in their navigational experience/local knowledge is more likely to do this - hopefully they will not need rescuing by English folk if they get into a pickle!

In reply to Sophie G.:
Interesting artist - Emma Kay; makes artworks by attempting to recreate things from memory...eg the bible, the history of the world, a drawing of the world from memory - http://www.factum-arte.com/pag/144/Emma-Kay

In reply to digby:

Thanks, interesting link.

I sometimes wonder how much of western literature wd b left, if all the books and libraries and internet were destroyed in some cataclysm, and all that there was to rebuild it from was what was in our memories.

I could produce some fragments of Shakespeare; but not even enough for a really Bad Quarto...

In reply to Sophie G.:

Did that get questioned on the other thread?

In reply to Sophie G.:

When I was on my ML assessment during a lunch stop on the navigation day one of the candidates claimed to have a photographic memory. After the stop the assessor asked him to take us to a minor knoll in the middle of nowhere then relieved him of his map. He failed! Why? Because he tried to actually take us there - if he had owned up to being a big mouth and asked for his map back he might have got away with it.

I was running on Dumyat (near Stirling) yesterday. Been up (and down) it well over 100 times and still somehow managed to go off track in perfect visibility. Wasn't lost but had to have a think....

In reply to Sophie G.:

It often isn't necessary to have a perfect mental map. If you are on the hill in summer and following tracks you only need to know what tracks there are and how they relate at junctions. Same with any prominent features such as ridges. With snow cover in a whiteout or even restricted visibility it is very different. Also it would be different if required to find an obscure location not previously visited (as in another reply) rather than just navigate up and down a big hill successfully.

Another factor is that in good visibility you can recalibrate/update your mental map from deeper memory banks as you go along. Often, both driving and walking, I couldn't picture a whole journey but when I get to any point I know what is coming next. For these reasons I rarely take a map for fair weather summer walking in most of the Lakes or Snowdonia although I would need to in Scotland or the Rhinogs as I am not so familiar with the territory.

In reply to Sophie G.:

There must be some evolution going on here; we evolved to hunt mammoths (etc) and so must have the ability to make mental maps to a considerable extent - but only insofar as the territory concerned is useful to us.

I have a mental map of Bacup, where I lived until I was six. It is linear, running from the church at one end of New Line, down the road past our old house, over Booth Road, past our new house, and down to my school at Waterfoot. I have no memory at all of the town centre, nor of what stretches beyond the linear memory ingrained by journeys to church and school as a very small person.

In reply to Planks Constant:


No, the thread was side tracked when she started complaining about people's accents and what time they eat their evening meals.

In reply to Sophie G.:

This TED talk may be of interest: https://www.ted.com/talks/aris_venetikidis_making_sense_of_maps

It's entirely about how the brain processes places and maps them mentally. Your experience of mapping Lochnagar is a good example of how he described the brain working.

Mehmet

In reply to Sophie G.:

I think there are two different things here.

a) memorising and drawing a map.

b) knowing where you are in the landscape and how to where you want to be.


In a), it is a copying skill. I've also seen maps drawn by Canadian Cree indians on paper. They are not accurate in the sense of our maps. I've seen other historical examples of maps drawn by other tribal groups . They don't use/own any maps but they do have the ability, much better ability than we do at b), actually knowing where they are in relation to the land.

So when they draw a map, it is 100% accurate, but not as we understand it, in that large unimportant features (to them are drawn much, much smaller to scale). The overall topography is excellent only in such much as their needs of the map. So some unimportant things may be totally missing. I suppose our maps are drawn for our needs and if they draw a map it is for different needs.

In b) Its spacial and topographical knowledge which is being used. In recent years I've met a few cree hunters who navigate their way around vast tracts of land over 200m miles or more without using map or compass. I was also privileged to talk to an innuit from West Greenland who immigrated to Fort Smith in Canada in 1970. He'd hunted in northern canada a few times before and one year on a hunting trip with his dogs in the winter he crossed the sea ice and stayed. I last spoke to him he was working on the desk of the Pelican Inn in Fort Smith. They just know their land.

In reply to Mehmet Karatay:
This is a great talk - thanks for pointing it out. I particularly liked the idea that the main spine of a map represents our main interest so make it a straight line with branches off it to show subsidiary items. Noting important changes of direction may be needed occasionally but are not that important.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

I remember many ML trainers using the technique. A couple of minutes to memorise the next section, then walk it. Very good for the development of map-memory.

In reply to Sophie G.:

I think the most useful skill is to be able to look briefly at a map and have a pretty good 3-d mental image of, say, a whole group of hills, in your head. I think this only comes from long years of experience in using maps in the hills. I have sometimes surprised people by navigating all day in the hills from such a mental picture. Of course once a compass is necessary, the mental map is only useful for fairly crude navigation (which is more often than not all that is necessary anyway).

In reply to Sophie G.:

I just remembered this story which may be of interest:-

Marvin Creamer sailed around the globe without the aid of navigational instruments.

Between 1982 and 1984, Creamer and the crew of his 36-foot boat Globe Star, circumnavigated the world without a compass, sextant, watch, or other instruments.

They spent 510 days at sea. As general guides, Creamer observed the sun and stars, currents, and the occasional local biological setting.

>nd the occasional local biological setting.
does this mean local fish/animals/plants present?

In reply to Dan Arkle:

He became an expert at celestial sailing, designating the “North Star” and triangulating his position off of it. Also, using the sun with its rise and set positions. Using this method he could keep within 1 degree of latitude and longitude, but this would not help him during the daytime or cloudy conditions.

For navigation during daytime or overcast conditions, he found other ways to determine latitude. He studied ocean currents, marine life, water colour and temperature. These skills were critical not only in stormy conditions, but also in calms under slate skies.

In reply to Ann65:

I recall a tv programme - or perhaps a book I read some years ago,about some of the pacific islanders who could also navigate across large parts of the pacific without any modern aids, including compasses.

They too had it all in their heads and used stars, sun, wind and interestingly the directions of fixed waves which radiate in predictable patterns in different parts of their territories.

In reply to Dave Perry:

Dave

Yes I read something about the Pacific islanders and the Inuit people of the Arctic with similar skills.

We are fairly good at exercising our body these days, but maybe we also need to exercise our brain.

In reply to Dave Perry:

Wasn't that Collapse by Jared Diamond?

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I think I read it in an article by Nicholas Carr - 'All Can Be Lost'

In reply to Ann65:

Anne if you read the last paragraph in my oat oe 03 jan, you'll see I met an Inuit wh had walked from Greenland to Canada in winter!

In reply to Dave Perry:

Sorry Dave, I did read your earlier comments, though I also read this, I think, in the Nicholas Carr article.

In reply to Dave Perry:

On the subject of mental maps of the high arctic, I've enjoyed Barry Lopez's book 'Arctic Dreams' .

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mcX4AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT160&lpg=PT160...

In the book itself, there's a side by side comparison of a map drawn by a native traveller to one set out by scientific survey . The area covered by the map is huge, and it's fascinating to attempt to understand why certain features are made more salient.

In reply to llechwedd:

Thanks for that link - its the sort of thing I'll enjoy!!

In reply to Sophie G.:

Good exercise but good luck memorising contour lines and aspect of slope!

In reply to Ann65:


I remember from my orienteering days that there used to be a variant - can't remember what it was called - where you didn't get a map. There was just a small map at each control point showing the section to the next one. You had to memorise the features between them and then just run from memory. If you got lost you had to try and retrace your steps back to the last checkpoint and try again. Quite rare but fun! And of course the clock's ticking while you're looking at the map.

In reply to Sophie G.:

At the moment my 'head maps' seem pretty bad. Shows up when I'm out on my road bike in on complex back roads in unfamiliar areas and just a paper map in my back pocket. I'll stop somewhere, consult the map, memorise some features and turns, head off and within minutes I can't correlate what I see on the ground with what I remember from the map. So I have to stop again - Ahh! I've tried being more analytical about which features I focus on - including ones which indicate 'off-track' as well as 'on-track'. I've tried describing them aloud rather than just 'thinking' (what you say is supposed to lodge in your memory better than fleeting thoughts). But it's still pretty poor. Perhaps I should just invest in a Garmin, but that seems like a cop-out.

In reply to Marek:

In the Nicholas Carr article, apparently half of the population use spatial strategies when finding their way around (learning the relationships between various landmarks), while the other half prefer a stimulus-response (encodes specific routes by memorizing a series of clues).

In reply to Marek:

Its a tougher skill than it sounds without a doubt! Some people are naturally much better at visualisation of the terrain than other as well. My wife for example is very good at forming a mental picture of the terrain - far better than I am - even though my nav is sharper and more practiced.

We've had training days where the instructor asked us to visualise the route to a particular point, describe the features from the map, then confiscate the maps and ask us to take him there. It was a much harder exercise than most expected, and showed that a lot of people don't really retain the info they read from a map that well (myself included).

It is a useful skill to practise though - arguable as important as pacing etc, but much harder to actually practice and re-enforce I think.

Cheers,

Stu

In reply to Sophie G.:
There often seems to be an element missing from these sort of discussions on navigation- or at the very least, one that I don't think is given sufficient prominence- the capacity in any given moment to attend to, to be aware of stimuli, external and internal, to get to where we want to go. Obviously, just like any mental capacity it varies between individuals. More importantly IMHO, it varies day to day within an individual- and we may not factor this into the equation when we set out secure in the knowledge that we've diligently practiced our nav techniques.

I'd guess the memory mapping examples given upthread, where, on a course, an instructor relieves you of your map, are intended to show you the degree to which you rely on a map, rather than an opportunity for a smartarse to demonstrate his superior spatial skills.

After all, if there is an individual on that course who can get there without a map, it doesn't mean he/she would have done so when cold/wet/ tired/ hungry/injured/in physical or psychological pain or distress/ or any other attention blunting stuff that happens to all of us from time to time.

You could have superior 'spatial skills' because you never get lost because you're a joyless b4stard who treats every trip as a task, mirthlessly stopping only at the safety of known summits to 'admire' the view.
Conversely, you could be the sort of person who generally gets it right, whose attention is diverted by musings on the relationships of the thing around them, but paradoxically that same wandering mind builds up a picture subconsciously which can aid their safe passage to their destination.