GOLD - CONTOURS AND GROUND SHAPES - SYLLABUS

a) Confidence in the use of the handrail navigation, simplification and relocation skills detailed in Levels 1 and 2 in open countryside or on hillside as well as in forest and urban environments. Map memory is useful. At first practise doing short legs without referring to your map, gradually increase the length and complexity of these legs.

b) The ability to identify from the map contours significant ground shapes and to utilise these for navigational purposes. (e.g. hill tops, valleys, ridges, spurs and knolls). The type of map used may condition the interpretation of this section. Candidates should appreciate that land forms do not change like man-made features and are therefore surer guides for navigation than paths or buildings. Ridges and valleys can be used as sure handrails though streams and marshes can vary seasonally.

c) The use of compass, distance judgement and continuous relocation (by frequent checking) in complicated areas as an integrated back up system to accurate map reading using both map to ground and ground to map techniques.

d) The ability to form a three dimensional mental picture from map contour features and to base navigational decisions on this image.

e) An understanding of the special physical and navigational demands of high mountain and moor, poor weather conditions and the efforts of fatigue and discomfort on decision making. In addition candidates should be competent in handling the particular navigational skills relating to these specialist areas.

Establishing your position by Cross-bearing. Identify at least two features in the terrain which you can locate on the map. Take a field bearing to one of the features. Put the compass on the map with the long edge of the baseplate intersecting the sighted feature. Turn the entire compass keeping the sighted feature at the edge of the baseplate, until the compass orienting lines, in the bottom of the housing, are parallel with the magnetic meridian lines on the map. Ensure the orienting arrow points to magnetic North on the map. Your position is somewhere along the longside of the baseplate. Repeat the same procedure using another feature. Your exact position is where the two lines cross.

Correcting a leaders bearing. Sometimes it is appropriate for group members at the rear to correct the leaders bearing at short intervals, however, this method isoften very slow. Accuracy of bearings will vary with user and compass type. An error of ±4° over a distance of 1km gives a final inaccuracy of 140m.

The “Slope Aspect” can be used to determine your position ACROSS a slope. Take a bearing down the "fall line", an imaginary line running straight down the slope. Convert from a magnetic to a grid bearing, and compare this with the map.

The “Direction of Linear features”. It is sometimes possible to gain information about your position by ascertaining the direction of a linear feature, e.g. a stream. Sighting Compasses

When using a sighting compass (usually a compass with an integral mirror) hold the compass up, as in the picture, so that you can see the reflection of the compass housing in the mirror at the same time as being able to make a sighting through the compass sight.

f) Application of good countryside practice and awareness as for Levels 1 and 2.

PRACTICAL TRAINING SESSIONS

This type of training happens on many types of course. In particular it often takes place on Day One of an MLA Training course or a Mountaincraft type course but can equally be done when practicing and improving your navigation skills. There are numerous suitable venues but it is suggested that the area should have a plentiful supply of small features, streams, walls, hillocks, etc, so that each leg an be fairly short but still contain a number of features.

A reasonable approach is to introduce the above techniques more or less in the order given above. In this way students are introduced to the basic skills of reading a map before being confronted with more complicated techniques. Thus a logical progression can be built in to the day.

If possible introduce only one new technique on any one leg. Thus the first, few legs may involve only following line features, reading ground features and land forms as you go. The next might involve pacing along a line feature. The idea of attack points, possibly involving short bearings, follows naturally. Pick each leg carefully so that it involves only the techniques you are trying to illustrate. If possible keep the legs fairly short: longer legs are likely to involve too many techniques. It will probably be most instructive to use 1:25 000 scale maps but some practice should be given on l:50 000 maps as well.

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