Old school map reading class

[blackntan]

Yup every weekend from the age of 13 to 17.5 I would travel from the Wirral to do climbing, mountaineering. And our mountaineering club had a house close to tyn-y-coed

A few years later I was a member of the RAF Mountain Rescue team out of Anglesey

We stayed on the farm just past plas y brnyn In a cow shed , we dug tons of cow n sheep muck out couple of feet deep then washed the place out it became a climbers hut and is now a populat rent for the farmer that was back in the mid 70s with the school and BB HOW TIME FLYS
Had the run of the joint services mountain trianing camp for years while my nephew was a rupert fozzy did you ever go there

 

[Fozzy325]

We stayed on the farm just past plas y brnyn In a cow shed , we dug tons of cow n sheep muck out couple of feet deep then washed the place out it became a climbers hut and is now a populat rent for the farmer that was back in the mid 70s with the school and BB HOW TIME FLYS
Had the run of the joint services mountain trianing camp for years while my nephew was a rupert fozzy did you ever go there

I never stayed there, but i always wanted to.

 

[blackntan]

I never stayed there, but i always wanted to.

Great place allways a few interesting types passing through

 

[Rollin Dirty Overland]

Cool that you bring this up. I work for a suburban municipality that has multiple "Green Spaces" basically small patches of woods tucked in between subdivisions. Recently, someone proposed a Disk Golf course at one of the locations. It got me thinking. An Orienteering course would be low-impact & educational. I miss that in my Boy Scout days some 30-40 years ago. Finding that note with the next bearing & distance was the predecessor to finding a geocache!

Funny you should mention disk golf and land nav in the same paragraph. I often use a disk golf course near my house to play around with map and compass from time to time. Night land nav has always been my personal favorite and that course is perfect.

Very good idea @Fozzy325 I've been kicking around the idea of preparing a land nav class for a few years, but could never really find the context or audience. I've been thinking about it a lot more since I joined OB.

 

[Pilgrim]

I learned to read topo maps back in my days as a Scout. Now I'm a Scouter and would like to bring in orienteering as a skill to develop in our troop. So thanks to the OP for bringing this up. My map stash is too big to carry, but it's almost all road maps. I was an avid long-distance motorcyclist 15 years ago, so I picked them up wherever I went and had the relevant map folded and placed in my tankbag window to navigate. I would often trace my route with my left index finger, while the right hand controlled the throttle, braking and steering. I did have a Garmin eTrex Legend which was great with its backlight to guide me at night, otherwise I needed to stop under hwy streetlights at interchanged to get my bearings as a solo travelling. Good times.

 

[dkr83]

My only suggestion would be to add a solar component to the course so individuals without a map could orientate themselves based on the time of day and suns location.

 

[JimInBC]

I learned to read topo maps back in my days as a Scout. Now I'm a Scouter and would like to bring in orienteering as a skill to develop in our troop. So thanks to the OP for bringing this up. My map stash is too big to carry, but it's almost all road maps. I was an avid long-distance motorcyclist 15 years ago, so I picked them up wherever I went and had the relevant map folded and placed in my tankbag window to navigate. I would often trace my route with my left index finger, while the right hand controlled the throttle, braking and steering. I did have a Garmin eTrex Legend which was great with its backlight to guide me at night, otherwise I needed to stop under hwy streetlights at interchanged to get my bearings as a solo travelling. Good times.

We have started basic compass skills with the cubs. Fortunately we meet at a camp and have topo maps of the area which gives a great place to teach the skills. This year I hope to get a course set up for them.

 

[danl]

Good syllabus. Sounds like what we covered in the Army. I agree with the comment about adding solar navigation. Seems like you might have done the course by now. If so, how did it go?