Reading maps and navigating - too much detail or too litte?



Silva Expedition 54 Compass

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Outdoor Technology

Outdoor Technology.

What type of technology accompanies you on a walk in the mountains or hills?

I've just started to ask this question as my list of gadgets, or Outdoor Technology increases - as does the weight of my rucksack.

Last week I was in the Lake District, enjoying some very cold and snowy weather and even a couple of mountain tops - one on the Uldale Common the other, Skiddaw, the 4th highest mountain in the Lakes and a beautiful climb at 8am on New Years Day.

These walks, plus a couple of shorter ones with my young family, saw me carrying a mind boggling array of these gadgets:

Canon Digital SLR
Canon Compact Camera
Panasonic Camcorder
Garmin GPS - Oregon 300
Mobile phone

Back at the cottage lay a net book and a Three mobile internet dongle, which proved useless as there was no signal!

Thankfully I wasn't silly enough to take all these things out with me each time. I carefully chose the gadget for the walk. Family walks, camcorder, great views on a crisp cold morning the DSLR, risk of getting a white out and general interest in walking stats (nerdy?) Garmin GPS and the compact camera and camcorder for when we went out on Uldale Common where a blizzard whipped up and we decided to try plastic survival bag sledging.

Now, me being me, I decided to do the sledging with my camcorder and camera in a pouch on my waist belt - where I could get easy access and film the action, makes sense I hear you say. What I didn't reckon on was the spindrift and the general snow from wiping out on the plastic survival bag sledging. Opening my case I found that everything was covered in snow, I had (if it was made from paper) a very white and soggy loooking set of gadgets. Oops I thought. Best get them dried off and hope that they still work. Amazingly, like when I lost my DSLR into a crevasse for a week, I got them home, dried them off and they are working fine. I'm very impressed - but will be more careful next time.

For the the walk up Skiddaw I was more prepared -I put my DSLR into a plastic bag into the camera case. Perfect I thought. I can even shoot through it and not get wet gloves all over the camera. On the saddle between Carl Side and Skiddaw I was foiled by the wind with the plastic bag being whipped away from me as if I wasn't holding it. It was a wild day. But the pictures look great (coming soon). On the summit, spindrift was getting into my case again so I made a mental note to take a dry sack next time and attach it firmly to the daysack. The Garmin GPS fared better, being waterproof and rugged, it performed well at every glance, giving me my altitude, stop time, walking time and average speed and a maximum speed of 19.6kmh (more sledging!).

Technology is amazing and what is available can really add some fun into your walking, especially when you are back in the warmth of your cottage reviewing sledging on the lap top, looking at your amazing pictures, thinking that was awesome whilst checking out your walk stats and wondering what the hell I was doing stopped for an hour on a 5 hour walk? Heck - you could even upload your pics to Facebook if the dongle worked.

Be warned though - take care of your gear and don't let the snow into it nor the rain. And spend some time getting to know it before you go out - I'm sure my Garmin GPS and Panasonic Camcorder can do a lot more than I manged to get them to do. Have fun - Love the Adventure and may technology help you re-live it.

Scout training at Lodge Hill

A cold but sunny morning awaited me when I awoke - far too early for a weekend, even though I was running late (not the best night - baby wasn't really on sleeping form, ignored the alarm clock).

It was a quick drive down to Lodge Hill Outdoor Activity centre in the heart of rural West Sussex, for two days of intense training sessions to become a fully fledged Explorer Scout Leader. The last weekend of training and that is almost it, just need to organise a camp to get my nights away permit and the hallowed wood badge, which, incidentally is now plastic. Or so I've been told. The original wooden beads on the wood badge were carved from a fallen tree at the home of Scouting, Gillwell Park, because of the massive interest that Scouting attracts from Adult Volunteers and the fact that the tree fell a very long time ago the wood is no more. Hence the plastic. Sign of the times?

I digress, but a little history of Scouting here and there doesn't hurt. One of today's modules was programmes, balanced and wholesome. We were even given a programme checker to make sure they were indeed balanced and wholesome. I wonder if Microsoft have a programme checker? The session was facilitated by the affable Tim, offering his words of wisdom from years of experience on what a balanced Scout programme should be. The Scout Association help with this, by giving you a list of zones to work to and also methods of delivery, such as talks, technology, outdoor adventure & visits.

Our small group decided to build a programme with the aim of going on a lightweight expedition. Starting with this at the centre of a spider diagram, we spidered our way out spinning the web and covering areas such as gear talks (if you want one contact Walk and Travel - Sussex and South Surrey only!), food tasting, a visit to the gym to get a fitness programme planned, first aid training, night hikes, practice backpacking weekends and using technology in the outdoors, Garmin GPS, digital mapping and laptops - after a session on traditional navigating, so compare and look at the routes we were going to hiking along.

Then more detailed planning followed and night based on food tasting was arranged. Here is our programme for a Scout evening:

• 8pm Flag break and inspection
• 8.10pm Talk on nutrition, calories need for hiking (2500 for sustenance and 2500 for the hike - though I wasn't too sure on the numbers, more research may be needed) and an interactive looking up of calories in food on the Internet.
• 8.30 Game
• 8.45 Food for backpacking laid out on a table, to include dehydrated backpacking food, wet backpacking food, supermarket food for backpacking and supermarket food unsuitable for backpacking. Scouts to put together a 24hr menu choosing the right food stuff for the expedition.
• 9.00 Preparation of the food and a tasting session and food evaluated on a score chart
• 9.30 Clear up
• 9.45 Feedback on what types of food were the most yummy and gave enough calories for the expedition.
• 10.00 Flag down.

I found this to be one of the better Scout training sessions as a balanced programme really is key to retaining the young people, developing them as people and really just plain old enjoying themselves. Think I will be using this one with my Explorer Scouts.