Navigation Workshop

Next time I go unemployed in Scotland I’ll pick a better time of the year. Because what use is it to have plenty of time on your hands if you can’t use it properly? If it was summer I’d grab my backpack and be off walking around Scotland. I really haven’t thought this through properly. And cuddling up at home is not a great option either, since my current home is cold, even equipped with hat, scarf, blanket, and tea.

So, in order to get out and socialize I signed up for a Meetup group, the Scottish Hillwalking and Activities group, that organize hillwalking, rockclimbing and other social events in and around Glasgow. So far I’ve joined two events, a beginner’s rockclimbing class in a climbing hall that is a converted church, and a navigation weekend workshop in the Scottish highlands. The climbing class was very nice and relatively cheap, and if I go there a few more times I might be eventually confident enough to belay other people without letting them fall.

The navigation workshop happened last weekend in Crianlarich, a little village in the highlands, on the route of the West Highland Way (WHW) which, in 2011, had been the first multiday walk I did. We actually skipped this part of the WHW because it went along a road and we wanted to save our energy for the prettier parts. Last weekend however, I did walk around the area, to practice using a map and a compass. The workshop consisted of a theory session in the morning, in the Crianlarich Youth Hostel, and a practice session in the afternoon, on the hill. Scotland showed itself from its worst side. While it was only cold and windy with knee-deep snow on Saturday (we left the trails in order to simulate getting lost and because the instructor doesn’t really like trails), it rained, snowed, and sleeted during the whole Sunday. My boots finally gave up the ghost and were soaked with icy water by the end of the day.

But being a nerd I really liked the compass/map part of the ordeal, and even when I hadn’t been able to feel my toes for a few hours I could still smile when I actually ended up where I had planned to end up just by using the compass. There’s so much more to a compass than a needle showing to magnetic north! With some practice and experience (and a good map) you can use the compass to identify your position when you get lost even when you can’t see far. You can climb mountains that don’t have any paths at all, or find the quickest way off the mountain if the weather turns bad. The only problem is that using a compass is much more fun in conditions where you don’t really need one. From the little experience I gained over the last weekend I can say that in shitty weather I rather follow anyone who seems to have an idea which way to go than get my hands cold by using my compass.

All in all it was a very nice weekend. I met friendly people, I finally found an excuse to get new boots, and in the end, we all indulged in huge portions of fish and chips at the chippy in Tyndrum.