Tuesday 10 December 2013

A very successful weekend

Last weekend I held a map and compass course. Well, actually a National Navigation Award Scheme Silver training and assessment course.

The venue for this was the Berwyn range, and the course candidates made the most of the superb walking in the area, whilst also learning the required skills at Silver level. So, by the end of the weekend they'd all climbed Craig Rhiwarth, Y Clogydd, and skirted around Post Gwyn quite a bit! Not to mention learning how to take and follow compass bearings, understanding contours, pacing and timing, and access to the hills.

All candidates passed the assessment, and obviously enjoyed the whole weekend.

To find out when our next navigation course is, have a look at our website Wild Walks Wales

Following a compass bearing across some rough terrain

Measuring a distance

So, where are we?

Navigation can be fun too

Our views of Moel Sych across the cwm

Heading down at the end of the day

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Plynlimon

We’re now exploring the wonderful Plynlimon mountain range every Thursday as part of our new Guided Walks programme Wild Walks Wales - Guided Walks. Here’s a few photos from our most recent day up there.









Monday 2 December 2013

Top Ten tips for winter walking safety from our Winter Mountain Leader

These essential tips have been reblogged from our now-defunct Wordpress blog, as we think all winter walkers should be prepared! 

Crib Goch, with Snowdon peeking out from behind in good winter conditions


Winter is not that far away. Parts of Wales, Cumbria, and Scotland have already had some snow. Now, while we may not get as great a winter for being in the hills as the last one, there will invariably be some of the white stuff around for us to go and play in for at least part of the dark season, so here’s a few tips that will help to keep you safe.

  1. Keep an eye on the weather forecast. For most mountain walkers this means using the superb Mountain Weather Information Service http://www.mwis.org.uk/, or the Met Office, or sourcing a forecast locally – lots of hotels, shops, outdoor centres, even police stations post daily forecasts in their windows in the main mountain areas. The trick is not only in getting a forecast, but paying attention to it! If it says there’s going to be 120mph winds on the Cairngorm plateau, it’s probably not wise to ‘go and have a look’.
  2. Check the avalanche information. In Scotland the Scottish Avalanche Information Service http://www.sais.gov.uk/ is available to give up to date forecasts for the main mountain areas. Even if you are going walking in areas not covered by the forecasts, a glance at the nearest region will give you a bit of an idea of what snow conditions might be like.
  3. Use your noggin! Avalanche forecasts are prepared each afternoon/evening for the following day. They are based on site surveys by people experienced in evaluating avalanche hazards, and also on the weather forecast for that night and the next day. So, if the weather forecast turns out to be wrong, there’s a good chance that the avalanche forecast might be too! As an example, if the weather forecast is for falling snow and 35 mph winds from the south, the avalanche forecast might say that north-facing slopes could be loaded with all that fresh white stuff. However, if the wind veered to the west instead of the south, there could well be a greater hazard on easterly slopes. My advice is, get a weather forecast, and an avalanche forecast, then go outside and see what did actually happen.
  4. Go on an avalanche evaluation course. Glenmore Lodge http://www.glenmorelodge.org.uk/avalanche-information.asp run a series of courses, and this really could well be the most sensible way to spend a few quid to save your life. Don’t be fooled – avalanches DO occur in Britain, and they DO kill people.
  5. Don’t pack light. I’m often asked by my clients things like “should I take this extra fleece?” The answer is “yes”. Or, “I’ve got two hats, which one should I carry?” The answer is “both”. I think you get the idea.
  6. Plan a route, but don’t always stick to it. Remember the advice above about checking weather and avalanche forecasts, then making your own mind up once you get out in the hills? Well, if you get up there, and have a dig around in the snow using the skills you’ve learned on an avalanche evaluation course, and discover that the slopes you were going to head onto are avalanche prone, don’t be afraid to modify your route. You’d be stupid not to.
  7. Know how to select an ice axe and crampons. There are lots of fairly useless ice axes on the market, and a fair few crampons that should be avoided too. Remember, not all people who work in outdoor shops get out into the hills that often (because they’re busy working in shops), and these people are NOT always the best folk to ask for advice. A qualified mountain professional, and there are plenty around, is best placed to explain the pros and cons of winter technical gear. Go on a course using hired kit first. Then, once you know what works and what doesn’t, you can go to the outdoor shop well informed.
  8. Eat and drink plenty. Food is fuel, and liquid helps your body to digest it and make use of it. It’s as simple as that. In the winter I have a light fried breakfast, followed by toast and jam, washed down with plenty of tea. Whilst finishing packing I have more tea or coffee. Out on the hill I love honey and banana sandwiches, washed down with tea or some other hot liquid (yes, water will freeze in the bottle in the winter), and I always carry some home-made flapjack or brownie for later in the day. This is in addition to any emergency rations I carry – they are for emergencies!
  9. Know how to navigate. This is another one of those skills that will save your life. That’s as true in the summer as in the winter, but in the winter you want to know exactly where you are at any point, and that means using the kind of technology that doesn’t rely on batteries that will freeze and die remarkably quickly in cold weather – i.e. use a map and compass, NOT a GPS. It is oh, so easy to step through a cornice and fall down a mountain side, or to stray onto avalanche-prone slopes. Get a map and compass, and most importantly, get yourself on a course to learn how to use them correctly. This is important. Navigation is very much a practical skill. It can’t be learned from a book. You absolutely must get outside in the hills in crappy weather and learn how to do it properly.
  10. Have fun, have adventures, but always bear all of the above in mind at all times.
We run a range of skills courses that could help to keep you safe in the hills, and we’re also available for basic winter skills training too. www.wildwalkswales.co.uk

Looking across to Snowdon from the Glyderau
The Berwyn with a light dusting of snow



Sunday 1 December 2013

The Scale of Things...

I've just moved this post from my old Wordpress blog, as I think it's worth keeping out there for walkers to read:

Learning how to use a map and compass should be seen as an essential skill for anyone venturing out into the countryside. I’ve heard so many people say things like ‘I always go with someone who knows where they’re going’, or ‘I leave all that map and compass stuff to my friend/husband/wife’, or even ‘I only go walking to places I’ve been before’ that it can start to feel like the whole walking fraternity is perhaps just following in the footsteps of one person who just happens to have been there before.

There are so many arguments against these comments, including that there’s no adventure or sense of achievement in only going somewhere you’ve been before, or going with someone else who has. For me the most important message I try to get across to outdoor folk is the fact that if the ‘nominated navigator’ in your group should have an accident or fall ill during a walk, who is going to know where you are and where to go to get help?

So, now is your chance to learn something about maps. Today we’re going to look at the scale of maps, and the bewildering variety of maps available to buy.



Scale
The scale of the map is a measurement used to compare the map itself and all the features on the map, to the land mass it represents, and all the features on the ground. A simple scale given on a map might be written as 1:50,000. But what does this actually mean? Well, slightly simplified, 1:50,000 means that everything on that map is 50,000 times smaller than what it represents on the ground. And that’s all you need to know. So, on a map with a scale of 1:50,000 you can measure out any distance on that map and it will be 50,000 times smaller than the actually distance on the ground.
The 1:50,000 scale is one of the most commonly used scales in mapping in the UK. The others that we tend to use a lot for walking are 1:25,000 (so everything on the map is 25,000 times smaller than on the ground), and 1:40,000 (everything is 40,000 times smaller on the map than on the ground).

Buying a map
You go into a shop selling maps (often outdoor equipment shops, but you can buy them in some post offices, newsagents, tourist information centres, even pubs and cafes), and quite often there will be an array from which to choose. Where do you start?
Well, apart from the obvious starting point being that you want a map of the area you want to go walking in, there are two main map manufacturers in the UK. The Ordnance Survey, and Harvey Maps.

Let’s start with the Ordnance Survey

One of the most commonly used maps in the UK is the Ordnance Survey’s 1:50,000 scale. They have produced a range of maps at this scale that covers the whole of the UK, and this range is known as the Landranger series (left in the photo above). Landrangers are widely available, and have a pink cover. They are superb for planning walks, cycle rides, country drives, in fact anything that involves going outside. The Landranger maps show all public rights of way too, so you can use them whilst actually out on a walk. The downside of the Landranger series is that these maps do not show field boundaries. So all those walls, hedges, fences, ditches, etc. are not shown on the Landranger. So, in practice you might know that a public footpath goes through an area of land, but the map won’t tell you which side of a fence or hedge the public footpath is on.

Then we come to the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale maps. At this scale the Ordnance Survey are able to show all those field boundaries, so you can easily work out from the map which side of the fence you should be walking on – bearing in mind of course that hedges get removed, and new fences do get erected too, but generally you can work out where they are on the map and the ground. The Ordnance Survey originally had a series of maps called the Pathfinder at 1:25,000 scale. These had a green cover, and the whole country was mapped at this scale by the Pathfinder series. The unfortunate thing with the old Pathfinders was that the map itself wasn’t very big. So, if you were going out on a longish walk, you might need two or three maps to cover the route. The Ordnance Survey realised that this wasn’t great, and so devised the Outdoor Leisure series, with yellow covers (2nd from the left in the photo). The Outdoor Leisure series is still at 1:25,000 scale so has all the benefits of the Pathfinders, but each individual map covered a much larger area of ground, and some of them are even double-sided. So, the one criticism that most outdoor folk had about the Pathfinders was eliminated. Well, not quite. Unfortunately the Outdoor Leisure series was only produced to cover the most popular walking areas of the country, so if you wanted to go walking in Snowdonia, the Brecon Beacons, the Lake District, the Cuillin on Skye, or the Cairngorms, for instance, you could get an Outdoor Leisure map that would cover your walk. However, should you fancy a stroll in the Shropshire Hills, Assynt, the Scottish Southern Uplands, or huge areas of lowland Britain, as an example, you had to either buy a fist-full of Pathfinders, or just use the Landrangers at 1:50,000 scale. Eventually the Ordnance Survey made the bold move to do away with the old Pathfinders altogether, and started to produce a new series of maps at 1:25,000 scale that would cover the whole country, using maps that were big enough to be useful for a day’s walking or more. The Explorer series was born. The Explorer series has all the advantages of scale, and detail, that the Pathfinder and Outdoor Leisure series boasted, and now covers the whole of the UK. These Explorer maps have an orange cover (middle map in the photo).

So, lets just recap on Ordnance Survey maps, and what they are most useful for. Generally speaking, most walkers in England, Wales, or lowland areas of Scotland use the 1:25,000 scale, and that means buying either an Explorer map, or the Outdoor Leisure (which still cover the main walking areas) – note that apart from the cover colour, these maps are exactly the same in terms of scale and detail. In the Highlands of Scotland the Landranger maps are still very popular. That is because they cover a much wider area (so you get more map coverage for your money), and there are a lot fewer field boundaries in the Highlands, so no need to worry about being on the right side of a hedge! Also, as the Highlands doesn’t have a network of public footpaths and bridleways (you have a right to roam in Scotland), even if you do find a hedge or a fence, you can legally be on whichever side of it you choose – even though some landowners wish this weren’t the case, and will tell you otherwise!

Which Ordnance Survey map series do I use? Well, as pointed out above, for walking in England and Wales, or if I’m going to a small Scottish island where I want the extra detail shown, I use the 1:25,000 by choice. For longer walks in the Highlands I tend to go for the Landranger series. For planning walks at home, I use the Landranger series first and foremost, then swap to the Explorer or Outdoor Leisure for finer detail planning.

And now we move on to Harvey Maps

The cartographers at Harvey Maps have realised that there is a lot of information on the Ordnance Survey maps that the walker doesn’t need, and that can actually make the map look cluttered. So, they have stripped down the map to only show features that are useful to walkers. And what’s more all Harvey Maps are waterproof! No more big map-cases getting tangled around your neck, and no more bulky laminated maps being too big to fit into a jacket pocket. For a while the maps Harvey produced where at a scale of 1:40,000, which can take a little bit of getting used to at first. They then produced the Superwalker series at the scale of 1:25,000 (2nd from the right in the photo) which is brilliant. These maps look good, have relief shading so you can see height detail much more easily, and have contours in either grey or brown to tell you whether it’s scree or vegetation underfoot. Now that’s user-friendly! More recently Harvey Maps have started producing a new series called the British Mountain Map (on the right in the photo). This is back at the 1:40,000 scale, which gives a happy compromise between the lack of detail of the Ordnance Survey’s Landranger series and a bigger area coverage than you get with a 1:25,0000 scale map. The other great thing about Harvey Maps is that they cover mountain regions, rather than just a square of land, so it is much more likely that all parts of your walk will be on the one map, unless you are on a mammoth backpack. The British Mountain Maps are on a material called XT40, which is completely waterproof, and tear-resistant too, and the more I use them, the more I love them. The Superwalker series is now being produced on something called XT25 which I guess is very similar if not the same as XT40 – I haven’t had one in my hands yet, so can’t comment! So, what’s the downside of the Harvey Maps, and why don’t we only use them? Well, the answer to both these questions is that Harvey Maps are only available for certain parts of the country. They cover a lot of the most popular walking regions of the UK, and a lot of long-distance routes too. But if you fancy striding out in the Yorkshire Wolds, or the Preseli Hills, you’ll have to buy an Ordnance Survey.

OK, so that’s map scales and types in detail. So what do I buy?

Well, given the overall coverage of the country, I like to plan with a Landranger on my knee. For use out on the hill, if a Harvey Map is available for the area, I’ll go with that every time. If not, it’s either OS Landranger (for the Highlands), or OS Explorer/Outdoor Leisure for the rest of the UK.

For our navigation courses, we use a combination of maps so you can get your hands on different types and different scales!

Check out our website for details of our next available map and compass courses Wild Walks Wales. These include ‘Safety in the Hills’, which is a 1-day course covering all aspects of keeping safe while out on a walk, including basic navigation, and ‘National Navigation Award Scheme’ courses which run over a weekend, and are tailored to different levels (Bronze for beginners, Silver for intermediate, and Gold for advanced navigators). These NNAS courses include assessments at the appropriate level. We also run Night Navigation courses, for more experienced hillwalkers, throughout the winter months.

I hope this has been useful to you, and hope to see you on the hill in the future!


The Precipice Walk

Walking at Llyn Cynwch in the autumn
This is one of the nicest ways of spending an hour or so if you're in the Dolgellau area. I just love the gentle paths alongside the calm waters of Llyn Cynwch, where the roots of ancient trees - oak, ash, rowan, alder - are reflected in the shining levels.
Trees at Llyn Cynwch on the Precipice Walk
Lovely reflections on the lake
The walk itself takes you in the loop around the low but rough hill of Foel Cynwch, and gives expansive views in all directions as you move around the hill. The walk itself is possible thanks to the Nannau Estates who own the land here - this is not a public right of way, but the Estate has been allowing members of the public to enjoy the walk for a very long time.
The view from Llyn Cynwch to the north west, to the mountain of Rhobell Fawr in the Arenig range
One of the finest views is along the broad and wooded Mawddach Estuary. Cardigan Bay out in the distance looks tantalisingly close, while the Mawddach itself is a truly lovely part of Snowdonia, and I think at least, the most beautiful river in the whole of Wales.

The Mawddach from the Precipice Walk
Wild Walks Wales - www.wildwalkswales.co.uk

The Hirnants

The Hirnant hills are really an extension of the western side of the Berwyn mountains. However, I always think they are sufficiently set apart from the Berwyn to be thought of as worthy of the hillwalkers' attention in their own right.

Arenig Fawr from Moel y Cerrig Duon

Y Berwyn from Foel Cwm Sian Llwyd

Heading towards the summit of Foel Cwm Sian Llwyd

The summit of Moel y Cerrig Duon
The view down to Lake Vyrnwy from Moel y Cerrig Duon
Post Gwyn in the Berwyn from Foel Cwm Sian Llwyd
Moel y Cerrig Duon
At the summit of Moel y Cerrig Duon
Foel Goch
The summit trig pillar of Foel Cwm Sian Llwyd
The summit of Cyrniau Nod
Below Bwlch y Groes beneath Moel y Cerrig Duon



www.wildwalkswales.co.uk