The Navigator's Dozen

The 12 most important mountain navigation skills.

These are all the skills needed to navigate in the hills (some of the skills overlap with each other).

• Setting the map
• Ticking off features
• Contour interpretation
• Taking and following a compass bearing (in detail and as a rough guide).
• Estimating distance travelled by timing and by pacing.
• Route Choice Selection of features on the map which can be identified on the ground to create navigational legs along a route that avoids major hazards and is practical to follow.
• Relocation strategies - in case you lose track of where you are.
• Identifying catching features so that you will know what the ground will be like if you have overshot your target.
• Map scales and measuring distances on the map.
• Slope Aspect and Direction of Linear Features.
• Aiming Off, Attack Points, Handrails
• Symbols and Grid References.

This page reproduced with the kind permission of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS). They run a number of Mountain safety courses, Seminars and Lectures. You can join the MCofS here