There are a number of techniques which are commonly used in navigation to help us find our way to a small destination or to help us identify when we have gone too far. The four set out below are the most frequently used and are covered in detail on our Mountain Skills Courses.
aiming off
When our destination is small and may be missed if we are not completely accurate when following a bearing we can aim off. This is when we introduce a known variation to help our decision process.
Any error in walking on a bearing , will mean that when we reach the road we will not know if we have to turn left or right to reach the carpark.
To eliminate this we can aim off, that is deliberately aim to the right of the destination (red arrow).
Now we know that when we reach the road we must turn left and walk to the carpark (Orange arrow).
attack point
When our destination is small, we can look for a larger, more obvious feature nearby. Once we arrive at that point, we can use a bearing and pacing to find the smaller feature.
Eg. We wish to navigate from the carpark to the small lake (black arrow).
We first navigate to the summit as it is easily identifiable (red arrow) then on a short leg using bearing and pacing to the lake (green arrow).
Hand railing
When a linear feature (stream, fence etc) is travelling in the same direction as we want to go we can follow it. In poor visibility we must stay closer than in good visibility.
catching feature
A catching feature is something (usually linear) which lies beyond the feature we wish to navigate to. If we reach that feature we know that we have gone too far.
Eg. Our destination is the Chapel. If we reach the fence, (green line). Then we know that we have missed it and gone too far. Our mistake has been “caught” by the feature.
All map images are sourced with kind permission from eastwest mapping.