Essential Hill Skills: The Compass

© Dan Bailey

Mountain Training hill skills scheme logo   © Mountain Training

UKHillwalking has teamed up with Mountain Training to bring you a series of articles on the topics covered in their Hill & Mountain Skills scheme.

The scheme is ideal for people who want to get started in hill or mountain walking, and the courses are run throughout the year all over the UK. Each article is written by a different Mountain Training course provider about a particular area of the Hill & Mountain Skills syllabus, to give you a better idea of what the courses are all about.

We all need help with our sense of direction sometimes, and where would we be without the compass? This ancient bit of technology still beats modern electronics for simple reliability, and learning how to use it could not be easier. Here North Wales-based rock climbing and mountaineering instructor Cat Forster introduces basic compass skills, from setting the map to following a bearing.

 


Ancient traders and sailors relied on many skills to navigate, following the path of the sun from east to west, the rotation of the stars around the poles, and observing ocean currents. Early maps often used east at the top. To ‘orientate’ yourself has its root in fixing yourself to the position of the east, the Orient. Now nearly all maps put north on top, largely due to the development of our most useful navigational tool, the compass. For hundreds, if not thousands, of years we have relied on its simple but significant basic function; it points north.

Setting the map using a compass  © Andy Say
Setting the map using a compass
© Andy Say

But which north?

We tend to think of north as one fixed point, the ‘top of the world’. But as hillwalkers we actually use three slightly different norths. This distinction has been covered in a previous article in the series, but there's no harm in explaining it again: 

True north is at the geographical pole, where the Earth’s axis exits.

Grid north differs a little from true north; it's the direction in which the vertical lines are laid out in the UK grid system on Ordnance Survey maps.

The compass, however, works by aligning a needle to the Earth’s magnetic field and so it actually points to magnetic north. This slowly moving magnetic field is closely aligned to the axis of the poles, but not exactly. The difference is called magnetic variation or declination, and it will alter depending on where in the world you are, and the current position of the gradually moving field. Ordnance Survey maps print the up-to-date magnetic variation.

Features of a baseplate compass  © Mountain Training
Features of a baseplate compass
© Mountain Training

Finding your bearings

We are often more orientated to our landscape than we realise; we stay on the sunny side of the valley, we go winter climbing on the north faces, and walk off a west-facing ridge at sunset. Orientating yourself in a landscape is one of the keys to good navigation. Through the course of the day try to keep a sense of where north is, note if a particular valley heads south east, or that river runs west. With good visibility we can do that by looking at the features around us and turning the map until it matches the landscape; river on our right, steep hillside on our left, for example.

"The compass is the tool that links your map to the landscape around you"

But the easiest way to find north is the compass. It is the tool that links your map to the landscape around you, and the less you can see of that landscape, the more important the compass becomes. Many hillwalkers think of the compass as an emergency item, but together with a map it can be used in a number of simple ways to help keep you on track. It is much easier, quicker and safer to use navigational checks to keep on route, than pulling out the compass once you are lost!

The simplest way to use a compass is for a direction check. Picture yourself at the head of a big wide valley. You’ve come down from the summit and reached a saddle. Ahead of you the valley leads down to a village; you can even see the smoke rising from the fire in the village pub. By pointing your compass along the path that heads to the village, you can establish that the direction of the village is west. Then using the map you can check whether the village to the west of your current location is actually the one where you left your car. Because no matter how good the visibility, we can get confused by what we see, especially when it means a quick finish when we’re tired. In this situation taking a minute to use the compass for a quick direction check could save you hours, if it stops you striding off in entirely the wrong direction.

Set the map

If you find yourself in poor visibility you can use the compass to set the map. Imagine you are at that same saddle but the driving rain means you can’t see the valleys and you don’t know which side to go down. Hold the compass over the map and turn the map until the grid lines running north on the map match magnetic north shown by the compass needle. By holding the compass and the map together like this, the map is now matched to the landscape around you. So even if you can’t see the valleys, you can tell from your position at the saddle that one path heads west and the other north east, say.

"A compass is still one of the most important items to carry on the hill: No satellite coverage, batteries, updates or plug-ins needed"

Long Crag to Ancrow Brow, a bearing of 278 degrees (give or take)   © Dan Bailey
Long Crag to Ancrow Brow, a bearing of 278 degrees (give or take)
© Dan Bailey
 

Take a bearing

There are other situations where you need more accuracy in your navigation. With poor visibility, darkness or no path to follow you may need to take a bearing. Here's how:

  • In order to be accurate you need to specify where you are on the map; this is Point A. You also need to specify where you are going; Point B. If your ultimate objective is not in a single walkable straight line from you then Point B will be the first direction to start walking in (ie. an initial bearing, of several perhaps).
  • Determine the rough direction from Point A to Point B.
  • Align Points A and B along the side of the compass, with the direction of travel arrow pointing towards B.
  • Rotate the compass housing until the orientating lines pointing north exactly match the grid lines running north on the map.
  • Remove the compass from the map. Allow for magnetic variation (where and when it is appropriate - for example in Snowdonia in 2015 it's a handy 0°).
  • Spin the whole compass until the north needle matches the north arrow on the compass housing.
  • Check that the bearing matches the rough direction – it is a common mistake to be 180°wrong.
  • Now walk on the bearing, by sighting down the direction of travel arrow to a fixed, visible point, and repeat as necessary.

Plan your route

With a bit of practice  - and supplemented with tactics such as pacing or timing (not covered here) - using bearings can become a reliable safe way to navigate though featureless terrain or total darkness. If you anticipate this being the case, it can be a lot more efficient to take bearings from the map while still at home. Even if you don’t foresee any problems, using a route card will help greatly with the navigation during the day. It doesn’t have to be a complicated one, but even in good visibility a plan that involves using the compass can make for really efficient navigation. For example, just working on the map at home you can see that from a particular summit you need to descend roughly S (initial bearing 174°) to a saddle, a distance of 200m (or roughly 4mins walking). At the saddle you'll then need to take a path NE to the village, 2km, 40mins.

The simplicity of the magnetic needle is also its only limitation. The compass needle will distort if it is close to anything else magnetic. This could be a watch, mobile phone or a wire fence, but also ferrous rock such as the gabbro on the Isle of Skye.

But it says something that the world’s oldest navigation tool has needed very few improvements over the centuries, and together with a map, a compass is still one of the most important items to carry in the hills. No satellite coverage, batteries, updates, sign ins, or plug-ins needed.

 


Cat Forster head shot  © Cat Forster

About Cat Forster

Cat Forster lives in Llanberis, North Wales, where she runs her own company offering bespoke climbing and mountaineering courses. Originally from London, she lived in Leeds for 12 years, working as a youth worker before specialising in outdoor education.  She moved to North Wales in 2007 working at the Mountain Training offices in Capel Curig, while completing the Mountaineering Instructor Award. She now teaches lead climbing, scrambling and mountaineering. runs Outdoor Leadership programs for schools and the Mountain Training Hill & Mountain Skills courses.

For more info see her website or contact her by email 

About Mountain Training

Mountain Training logo  © Mountain Training

Mountain Training’s aim is to educate and train people in walking, climbing and mountaineering. The Hill & Mountain Skills scheme has been designed for beginner and novice hill walkers so that they can be confident about planning and safely enjoying their own walks. There are providers the length and breadth of the country who deliver these courses on behalf of Mountain Training and they run throughout the year. Find a course near you.

Mountain Training also administers a range of nationally-recognised mountain leadership, instruction and coaching awards, such as the Lowland Leader, Mountain Leader and Climbing Wall Award.

For more info visit their website

 




4 May, 2015
In Essential Hill Skills, The compass, it is stated that mag var for the UK is currently 0 degrees. This is incorrect on two levels. Firstly mag var differs across the UK and no it is not 0 degrees. I agree in perhaps not including mag var when teaching early stages of nav. The terrain and leg distance that people starting on may be on may not warrant it, but to state it is currently 0 degrees is misleading. I often direct clients to the UKH site, and am now awaiting the emails asking me why I was asking then to adjust for mag var during micro nav. Stu
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