The Family Challenge: Mountain walks
The family
"Have you done any navigation before?" I asked my 11-year-old nephew, Peter, when we first talked about doing a course in the art of not getting lost. "Only when I landed a 747 at Rio de Janeiro," he replied, nonchalantly.
That's the PlayStation generation for you. Amazing experiences on a daily basis. But how would he be in the real world with an old-fashioned map and compass? Peter and his savvy 15-year-old sister, Suzanna, were doing me a favour. Learning to use a compass wasn't exactly top of their summer holiday agenda. But it was for me.
Having spent more than a decade living with a mountaineering instructor who was the human equivalent of a GPS - I sat while he navved - everything I ever knew about not getting lost on the hills was, er, lost. Now I'm going solo, it's not the getting lost that scares me but the absolute ignominy of having to be rescued.
So, using my niece and nephew for cover, I booked into Plas y Brenin (PYB), the National Mountain Centre in Snowdonia, for a day's navigation tuition.
The training
PYB is spectacularly placed in the shadow of the Snowdon Horseshoe. But the centre's policy of staying local to reduce its carbon footprint meant we were headed for a mere hillock across the road. Our instructor, James "Caff" McHathie, assured us, however, that Crimpiau was a hillock with plenty of navigational challenges.
Our first destination was PYB's store to get kitted out with walking boots, maps and compasses.
"I've brought my own compass," I said to Caff. "My dad gave it to me when I was Suzanna's age."
He took one look at it and said its age meant some of the calculations would take longer. Was this the compass and not me he was talking about? Sentimentally, I decided to use it anyway.
Caff's first trick was to get us to count how many paces it took to walk 100m so we could measure our progress. Peter? 72. Suzanna? 70. Jill? 133. Did you count both left and right steps, asked Caff? Yes, I did. Just count one, he said, patiently. A major navigational cock-up already.
Next we timed how long that distance took to walk using Peter's stopwatch. Of course, explained Caff, going uphill it takes longer and you can work out how long using Naismith's Rule.
That's when it all came flooding back - not Naismith's, which is a mind-numbing equation of 5km an hour plus half an hour for every 300m of ascent, but the reason I sat while the ex navved all those years.
Navigation is basically maths. I hate maths. And we hadn't even got on to magnetic variation, another calculation I only dimly remembered.
As for Suzanna and Peter, they were unusually quiet. Both get good grades in maths, but was this really what they wanted to do in their holiday?
Then a miracle happened. I zoned out of my despair and back into Caff's voice and heard him say: "So, nowadays Naismith's Rule is simply that you add one minute per contour line crossed ... " Really? Honestly?
"I suppose we've still got to do that magnetic variation thing, though?" I whimpered. No, said Caff. It's negligible so you don't have to bother.
After a break, we were on to the hillock proper. Caff showed us how to take a bearing - lining up map and compass and using the Earth's magnetic field to give the direction to travel. By now Suzanna and Peter were confidently chanting answers to all the equations, like US army cadets. How far? 300m? How long? Four minutes and 45 seconds. How many minutes added for contours? Two.
Peter led the first leg, striding off confidently into the bracken. He beamed with delight when we hit the bump represented on the map by a squiggle (official term: ring contour).
With each of us taking turns to navigate from leg to leg, we were soon at the top of our hill. And what do you know? The brilliant sunshine disappeared and down came the cloud. Then the rain. With no visible landmarks and no path in the dense heather to follow, the compass bearings were crucial.
Slowly, we descended using the ridge of the hill as a "handrail", all the while referring to the map and walking on those magical bearings. Then, suddenly, we were below the cloud and PYB came into view ahead of us.
"Did you enjoy that?" I asked Suzanna and Peter, fearing the answer. "All the walking up and down at the beginning was a bit boring, but after that it was good," admitted Suzanna.
"And I really liked taking the bearings," said Peter. "It was much more fun than our orienteering day at school."
Then I realised I had mistaken their silence for boredom - they had been concentrating and learning all the time. And that was the lesson I learned that day. That, and to get a new compass.
Your turn
The National Mountain Centre is at Capel Curig, North Wales, pyb.co.uk 01690 720214. There are navigation courses all over the UK. Search online or try ramblers.org.uk. In Scotland, try glenmorelodge.org or hillskills.co.uk; Northern Ireland tollymore.com; England, glaramara.co.uk