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The Jubilee Celebrations save of the day!

I just wish people would have the common sense to understand that the Peak District can be a challenging environment, particularly if you have ZERO navigational skills….. rant over!

I posted the above on Friday 3rd after a classic ‘save’ of a party with limited navigational competence!

Here’s the other side of the story (my dilemma) to allow people to appreciate what happens when you f@ck up big time!

After preventing them from following the Pennine way all the way to Torside,(and a taxi back to Snake summit no doubt), I am then faced with the dilemma of keeping them safe through their own incompetence!

I stand on the Cairn on Bleaklow Head, until they can see me, and I then indicate the direction of travel they should follow to their party leader!

Bearing in mind, I have already briefed them to follow the clearly marked track to the Wain stones, head for Hern stones (directly South of the Wain stones) and after that aim for the trig on the horizon!

I stand on Hern stones for approximately 30 minutes, getting a severe buffeting from the wind, waiting for a visual on them to ensure their safety! No sign of them!!!

Now, my conscience is in complete turmoil, where are they? Do I track back and relocate them? What if they’ve gone off on another trail?

When you meet people with ineffective Navigational skills, I guarantee the fact they cause this kind of dilemma does not even enter their minds!! Fortunately, after a substantial wait, I spot them on the horizon along with an additional group of four people

! My conscience is now clear, my concern was not for the adults I might add, but for the young child with them, who was probably hungry, thirsty and fed up of walking through the peaks and groughs! This is my story on one day, the MRT deal with this daily…. Don’t be a nugget, have some consideration for the potential impact you present by incompetence in poor planning, preparing and lack lustre navigation capabilities!

I have lost count of the number of personal saves I have made! Be safe, consider the potential impact you might have on others if you cock up! The Mountains are beautiful but hostile in equal measure!👍🏻🥾🧭

Finding ‘Over Exposed’ B29 Superfortress – some simple tips.

Get a Map – OS Explorer OL1 – The Peak District, Dark Peak

Buy a compass – SUUNTO or Silva

Learn how to measure distance to your objective (crash site in this instance)

· Shaven raspberry grid reference tool – should do the trick

· MapTools – Coordinate scales and Protractor, will also do it too!

· How about a ruler then?

Learn the basics of calculating timing

· Shaven raspberry Timing card

Wear a watch

Ok, so here goes, this is the real basics that you would need to adopt to get yourself in proximity of the site you are attempting to find.

· Park at Snake Summit, (on the Snake pass) adjacent to the clearly marked footpath, the Pennine way.

· You should realise that you need to head off in a Northerly direction.

· Have you measured that the approximate distance you will travel (using your measuring tool) at 2.75 km?

· Using your timing card, travelling at 3 kph you should be close to your destination in 55 minutes.

· If you carry on along the Pennine way, you will end up being an MRT statistic!

· Once you have travelled this far, you will need to head West for approximately 700m or roughly 14 minutes, (this is where I suspect most potential errors are made)!

· Your guide here is the trig point at 621 m on Higher Shelf Stones (this is within 200m of the wreckage)

The following pictures are purely for guidance on using your tools to assist you in locating ‘Over Exposed’.

Failing that, get some quality navigation training or a Guide who will ensure your safe passage to the site…

My fees are very reasonable!

Happy Navigating

Martin

Mobile phone:

The mobile phone that you carry with you can be useful for a multitude of things, most of which, you will already be familiar with. On a personal note, we chose not to use the mobile for navigating, as being ‘old school’, our preference is map and compass.

If you use any of the navigational apps available,(and there are a number of very good one available) just be conscious of the fact that should you lose life in the phone, you potentially may have lost all contact with the outside world should you need assistance in terms of locating and recovering folk.

The following a re just a few useful tips to assist along the way.

OS Locate – excellent re location App (and more)

The app converts GPS location readings from your mobile phone to Ordnance Survey National Grid references (6,8 or 10 if you prefer) along with an estimated position error and an approximate height indicator in either Feet or Metres.

No mobile signal? No problem: OS Locate does not require a mobile signal to function – the inbuilt GPS system can be relied upon, even in the most remote areas which is a definite plus for us!

The other brilliant features that are worthy of mention on this app are easily found in the settings option. In here you will find more than you will ever need to know with regards to:

For all the above reasons you definitely should have this as your navigational app of choice on your handset.

Turn your activities into beautiful stories, including animated 3D videos.

SARLOC

This is a little bit of reassurance that when, heaven forbid, you find yourself in an incident in the Mountains, the MRT have a brilliant methodology of reducing the time taken to find and rescue a casualty.

There are many apps for smartphones which show the phone’s location, but these rely on the lost person having the app installed before they get lost. The beauty of SARLOC is that it uses the web browser installed on the smartphone to interrogate the GPS and locate the person, normally to within a few metres. No need to install a separate app.

PhoneFind – developed by John Hulse (also an Ogwen team member), in collaboration with Binks and fellow Lakes team member Jon Lynch – and launched this year for use by UK mountain rescue teams, offers the same location process, integrating the information into the incident logging software back at base.

How SARLOC and PhoneFind work

The rescue team simply sends an SMS text message with a link to a webpage. Clicking on this link opens a page in the phone’s browser which queries the phone to identify its location. This data is then displayed to the user and automatically added over the internet to the MRMap database. So, whoever it is back at base with the kettle, handling the call-out, can see the casualty’s location on the digital OS map display. And, more importantly, he or she can now instruct team members exactly which direction to head in.

The first successful use of SARLOC was in May 2011, when Llanberis team members were talking to a lost person ‘somewhere on Snowdon’. They sent a SARLOC message and, within seconds, had a fix. They stopped the hill team, just walking out the door with a long search

in prospect and radioed the grid reference to the helicopter crew – who flew straight to the location, to hover directly above the casualty.

To date, SARLOC has been used at least 1600 times operationally in the UK. Its accuracy is consistently found to be between 10 to 50 metres.

Tip:

• Make sure you enable your smartphone’s ‘Location settings’ feature BEFORE setting off. Ref: www.ukclimbing.com

Happy exploring

Martin & Chris

Rucksack lid Contents:

• Essentials for ease of access as follows.

· Hat & Gloves

• For cold weather a woolly hat can be a life saver, helping to retain body heat
• For sunny days a peaked cap will reduce the glare and prevent your head from over exposure to the sun
• Cooler days, simple lightweight glove or glove liners will suffice
• Wet or cold days, ensure you have a quality glove on board.( lightweight gloves are not easy to put on when hands are particularly wet & cold)

· Single snack chocolate bar/biscuit

• When you get the ‘Rumble Tums’ its always good to have a snack immediately accessible – under nourishment can lead to poor decision making.

. Compass

• An obvious requirement to enable you to stay ‘on track’
• Learn how to use this well.

· Whistle

• Hopefully you’ll never need it, however in the event of an incident this needs to be readily accessible.

· Sunglasses (polarising)

• You need to be aware of protecting your eyesight from harmful UVA/UVB rays
• Glare can also be a factor that impacts your vision (particularly in the snow).

· Sunscreen

• Even on a cloudy day the harmful rays of the sun can pass through the clouds.
• Reduce the UV exposure, particularly with long days out, with sun cream. 

These are the basic items but the important ones , we also have our personal items which we add to .

Martin&Chris

Maps – OS or Harvey?

Ordnance Survey maps offers either Explorer or Landranger format.

· OS Explorer – excellent details, 1:25,000, great for detailed walking routes.

· OS Landranger – Great for bigger area coverage but less details at1:50,000.

If you are unsure which Map scale you would be comfortable with, why not follow this link for further details:

Getoutside Ordnancesurvey Maps

These Maps can be either paper maps or laminated. For the little extra cost we would advocate buying the waterproof laminated version.

Harvey maps are all Laminated and cover most areas within the UK.

· Superwalker XT25 – 1:25,000 scale, Waterproof, tough and lightweight

· British Mountain maps 1:40,000 scale, waterproof, tough and light

If you have not used a Harvey map before, why not follow this link:

Why choose a Harvey Map ?

Martin & Chris

May 2022

It’s here and April seems to have passed by in a flash, but with the prospects of better weather on the way, we will all be heading off back into the hills, Mountains and National Parks to enjoy the plentiful benefits that they offer.

It’s a well-known adage that you should, Use it or lose it and so what I’m referring to here is the ability to recall or effectively use our navigational skills.

It ‘may’ be the case you have forgotten things, or you just ‘may’ not have ever learned them, either way (and I’ll stop with the dreadful May puns now), I hope the following two links will help you to ‘brush up’ in order to give you a little refresher or build a little more confidence in your Navigational competence.

Here are the two links:

Safe Navigation

Compass skills (written for DoE students)

Happy and safe Navigation through May

Martin & Chris

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