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Essential Skills

Taking a Break
Mountain Lake Reflection
Mountain Hikers
River
Hiking
Hikers High Five
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5D's of Navigation

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The Five D’s

 

"Every time you plan or navigate from one waypoint to another, you need to consider the 5 D’s

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  1. Direction – This could be simply east, north-west or a specific magnetic bearing.

  2. Distance – How far do you have to walk? This could be to the next waypoint or until the next feature.

  3. Duration – How long should this leg take? Use this as a gross error check to see whether a mistake has been made in transit.

  4. Description – What should you be looking out for en-route?  Remember the analogy of a map being a book that you can read.  Highlight features, boundaries or landmarks.

  5. Destination – A description of what your target is at the end of the leg.  This could be a trig pillar, the corner of a wood or a junction in a boundary etc.  It is also useful to highlight any other feature that would indicate an error in your navigation, this is known as a gross error check."

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Description of the 5D's taken from onthehills.uk article

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Map Basics

The Map and How to Use It

In a scale of 1:50,000 :  this means that 1 centimetre on the map equals 50,000 centimetres (or 500 metres) on the ground. Two centimetres on the map is equivalent to 1 kilometre on the ground.

 

1:25,000:  1cm on map equals 25,000cm (or 250m) on the ground.  4cm on map equals 1km on the ground.  

 

1:50,000. 1cm = 500m.  2cm=1km

 

1:25,000.  1cm = 250m.  4cm =1km

 

So 1:25,000 is more detailed and closer up.  

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Grid References

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These lines are called ‘eastings’ - along the corridor and northings’ (the horizontal lines) up the stairs and are numbered from 00 to 99 in 100km blocks.

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To use the grid lines to identify a location, simply read along the numbers on the eastings first, and then the northings.

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Top Tip: If you have trouble remembering the order, say… along the corridor, THEN up the stairs.

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This ‘four figure’ grid reference refers to a square 1km by 1km, which is a large area on the ground. It is standard practice to give a six figure grid reference, which identifies a much more usefully-sized square of 100 metres by 100 metres.

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For more details visit: 

 

 https://www.mountaineering.scot/safety-and-skills/essential-skills/navigation/the-map-and-how-to-use-it

A Beginner's Guide to Grid References

Click Image below for a Guide to Grid References

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