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| Dartmoor, 11th January 2017; I'm in the dark jacket. |
I am always keen to practise navigation in difficult conditions, and in January there were two training sessions in consecutive weeks. One advantage of the early nights of winter is the opportunity to do night hikes and be back before bedtime, an opportunity not to be wasted.
The first event was in the Brecon Beacons on Friday 6th January. I stayed at the YHA Llangattock Mountain Bunkhouse, arriving early enough for a kip before the training, then joined my peers at a wind-swept car park on the north side of the Mynydd Llangynidr / Mynydd Llangatwg massif, which is near Crickhowell. There was a good bunch of us, all eager to tramp around in the dark and the rain to practice old skills and to learn new skills.
A new technique I learned, something which I would have thought impossible, was to walk level on gently sloping ground to reach an objective linked on the map to a known starting point by a countour line. Off we went, to start with each of us having a slightly different interpretation of level, but eventually we converged on the same destination. Analysis by GPS showed that we were 91m from the target, which I considered rather impressive considering none of us had tried this technique before. I am definitely going to hone this technique -- it's one more tool in the box.
Back at the hostel, I had a hearty meal, and spend the rest of the evening with three hikers.
The following week, on Wednesday 11th January, I went to the second event, which was held on Dartmoor, in the area to the north of the car park at SX560708. The weather was kind to us that night, and I found my shiny new Petzel Pixa3 headtorch too powerful, even on its lowest setting, so I switched to using my faithful old Tikka XP instead. We located some quite small and subtle features, practised following a poorly-defined ridge line, and, best of all, practised not using our compasses, relying instead on observation of ground and map for orientation. Afterwards, a group photo was taken in the light of the instructor's headtorch, then we repaired to the Plume of Feathers inn for well-deserved beers, and I stayed the night in the bunk house there.
Many thanks to the two instructors, Will Kilner for the event in the Brecons Beacons and Steve Lang for the event on Dartmoor: very good training, and time well spent.
