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Navigational Strategies: The Art of Effective Route Finding
On November 12, 2019 by Alastr Wenin in ALL BLOGS, HIKING AND HILLWALKING, NAVIGATION
Navigational strategy is a crucial element of orienteering, involving the conception and execution of an effective plan to pinpoint your destination. In scenarios where you're navigating via a strght line towards a target, it's feasible when distances are short or the feature being navigated toward is sizable and conspicuous; like a prominent loch lake. It must be noted that there are inherent issues associated with this approach:
Errors can emerge both during bearing measurement on the map and following it. The longer your walk based on compass bearings, the higher the error rate becomes. If an accuracy mistake of two degrees occurs when taking a bearing from the map, and another similar error is made while adhering to it, over a distance of 800 meters, you may miss your destination by 56 meters. Over a shorter distance of just 300 meters, this same degree of error would result in missing your target by only 20 meters.
Additionally, walking along strght lines can lead to navigational challenges when crossing slopes diagonally or descing slope lines. This is because the natural inclination ts to pull you downhill, often causing you to deviate from your inted path.
Accurately gauging distance during pacing and timing exercises also introduces errors. Moreover, traveling in strght lines across potentially hazardous terrn like cliffs can be risky.
When visibility is poor or when snow obscures paths and water features, these issues escalate. Consequently, it's essential to fragment longer routes into manageable legs by linking conspicuous landscape features along the way.
In formulating a navigational strategy, several key skills are employed:
ming off
The utilization of attack points
The identification of clear and proximate catching points
Spotting point features that stand out in the landscape, such as spurs, small ridges, colleys small depressions, and miniridges.
Recognizing slope features like distinctive breaks in slopes or slope orientations
Identifying linear landscape features including ridgelines, breaks in slopes, re-entrants depressions cut by a stream, streams, etc.
Masterfully employing pacing and timing techniques.
An exercise worth considering before setting your strategy is to meticulously identify all the man-made and natural features that could be used as:
Collecting points – such as breaks in slopes, slope orientations, water sources, linear formations, areas of interest, and point landmarks
Attack points – easily identifiable elements near the destination.
Catching points – similar to above.
A route that involves descing diagonally across a slope should generally be avoided because it can lead to errors due to being pulled along the slope's line.
In choosing your path, avoid hazardous terrn.
When dealing with small and subtle targets, consider using ming off techniques.
For example:
There might be multiple strategies that could facilitate finding your destination; each strategy comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Your success hinges on two fundamental factors:
Contour reading – the capacity to recognize landscape features both on paper maps and in real landscapes which you can leverage as a foundation for collecting points, attack points, and catching points;
The practical application of navigation skills such as pacing, timing, compass usage.
Navigational skills honed through practice under both good and poor visibility conditions are invaluable.
is part of our series exploring navigational techniques:
Navigation Skills: Measuring Distances
Navigation Terminology
Should you wish to enhance your navigational abilities, consider atting one of our National Navigation Award NNA accredited courses. We offer beginner, intermediate, and advanced modules for Bronze, Silver, and Gold NNA Courses.
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This article is reproduced from: https://aspenoutdoors.co.uk/2019/11/12/navigation-skills-strategy/
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