A blog post from Mike, who recently ran a two day naviagtion course based out of Princetown on Dartmoor.
I was fortunate to be invited by Ben to run a 2 day course on Dartmoor for Graeme.
We arranged to meet at the Princetown car park on the first day from where we adjoined to the Fox Tor Café for a coffee and chat about what he wanted to achieve over the two days.
We returned to our cars after about 30 mins to find a traffic warden had stuck a parking ticket on to Graeme’s windscreen and was writing one out for mine!
So be warned, parking there is no longer free, a good start to the day!
The weather was glorious, blue skies a light warm wind and great visibility, not a typical Dartmoor weather but very welcome.
We spent the day looking at and practicing all the basic navigation skills whilst at the same time discussing safe practice whilst walking alone in mountainous territory.
At the end of the day we agreed to meet early afternoon the next day so Graeme could practice micro navigation in poor visibility. As the weather was forecast to be another glorious day this was going to mean some night navigation.
We spent the day light hours revising many of the skills and knowledge from the first day but with the emphasise on ground to map and not relying on the compass.
As it grew dark so the emphasise changed and we practiced walking on bearings, step counting and breaking down a complicated leg into a number of simpler shorter legs.
This gave Graeme the confidence that he would be able to navigate safely even when the mist came down and visibility was minimal.
We finished back at the cars late that evening, happy to find no parking tickets and satisfied that we had had two days where a lot had been learnt and determined to go out and practice in the future.
