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Hill walking stupidity

“ok caller, do you know where you are?”
“Near somewhere called Craig Dubh?”
“There’s about eleventybillion Craig Dubhs in Scotland, can you give us another clue?”
“I’m on Ben Doon?”
“Well that’s narrowed it down to about ten, any chance of a grid reference?”
“A what?”
“FFS”
etc
When I was a Cussy, one of my jobs was teaching surveillance techniques, which being an old school Dept, involved OS maps, A-Z's and so on.

It was very noticeable that the advent of smartphones seemed to morph a generation incapable of of coping with paper but utterly dependent on a 2" screen and not very good at looking out of a window to match features to maps.

It does however, still bring a tear to my eye when one Doris, who was congenitally incapable of reading anything more complicated than Hello! proudly told me that " Oooooo, I know why you lot know where you are, it's cos North is always at the top innit!!"

It was , I suppose, a starter for 1.
 
Problem is those have all become minority activities. And so much less of the "Outward Bound" in schools.
I'm not sure what your point is. All the main organisations teaching expedition skills still teach it (and the Scouts haven't been as strong in decades). It's still taught as a mandatory element of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Expedition section, which is done by most schools.
 
When I was a Cussy, one of my jobs was teaching surveillance techniques, which being an old school Dept, involved OS maps, A-Z's and so on.

It was very noticeable that the advent of smartphones seemed to morph a generation incapable of of coping with paper but utterly dependent on a 2" screen and not very good at looking out of a window to match features to maps.

It does however, still bring a tear to my eye when one Doris, who was congenitally incapable of reading anything more complicated than Hello! proudly told me that " Oooooo, I know why you lot know where you are, it's cos North is always at the top innit!!"

It was , I suppose, a starter for 1.
In all fairness, a lack of map reading skills predates modern tech. I remember when I was a Spacey, our CO, who was a bit suspect, believed a smashing pair of tits was a sure sign of leadership.

Thus, he would promote female cadets who hadn't actually passed map reading, and was mightily surprised when SAR had to be called on two occasions to rescue hopelessly lost cadets.

My ex missus was always one to take command when trying to get somewhere: she did this by screwing up the map in one hand, and walking very quickly in the wrong direction.

The moral? If you don't know where you are on the map, the map is of no use.

As such, getting the little blue dot on the screen to move in the right direction is only going to happen if you understand this principle and how to orientate the map etc, or if there is a blue dot to be seen.

I know another Doris who can't understand that if her sat nav tells her to turn left after 400 yds, it's no use turning left immediately.



Garbage in garbage out.
 
I live in the middle of f*cking nowhere, it's the best place to be !
Noises that don't 'fit' are very noticeable when the background noise is all bird song and the wind in the trees. Heard a whistle blown repeatedly one day and wandered in that direction to see what was up. Couple of miles along the path I found a blind woman, her blind son, a man with dementia and a huge fat bloke wearing smooth soled trainers, who was the 'leader' and had slipped, fallen, broken ankle. The cheap orange whistle was the only thing they had got right. though I'm sure the Thunderer would have been better. Where he'd fallen was about 20 feet downhill from a forest track, so I suggested bum shuffling backwards to the track and I would collect them with the Land Rover and off to hospital, but nope, the bloke wouldn't move an inch. Ended up walking home and calling 999 for them. Ambulance arrived at the house and I expected it to drive round the track to the path, but no, he called for a helicopter. I watched the helicopter land, the blokes getting the stretcher out and then deciding that this bloke was way to heavy to lift. Half an hour later the Sea King arrived and winched the bloke out. Must have cost a fortune for all this messing around, when the ambulance could have driven to within 20 feet of him and he could have moved his far arse.
Contrast this with my most recent involvement with hill rescue. Got a call to unlock the forest gates to let an ambulance in. Turns out the woman in the nearest house (3 miles) had fallen and broken her ankle, had crawled a few miles towards home, but daylight had gone and was stuck on a steep, icy ridge and needed help. I ended up on one side of her, supporting the broken ankle and stopping her sliding off the ridge as we slid/shuffled her down to where there was space for six blokes and a stretcher.
Did you see a guy who was dressed in purple robes and smelled of sulphur running off in the distance?
 
It's still taught as a mandatory element of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Expedition section, which is done by most schools.
The issue being, at least at the level of the Bronze award, that the kids have such a small amount of time training and practicing that their nav is often a series of lucky guesses in well signposted areas. Most of them I wouldn't trust to navigate to a town centre McDonalds having had the same conversation with lots of them over the years about why, if they are trying to find a river, they shouldn't be walking uphill.

It's less of an issue at Silver and especially Gold but by that stage the numbers going through are a lot smaller and those tend to be the ones that have prior experience through Scouts, Guides, Cadets etc. anyway.
 
The issue being, at least at the level of the Bronze award, that the kids have such a small amount of time training and practicing that their nav is often a series of lucky guesses in well signposted areas. Most of them I wouldn't trust to navigate to a town centre McDonalds having had the same conversation with lots of them over the years about why, if they are trying to find a river, they shouldn't be walking uphill.

It's less of an issue at Silver and especially Gold but by that stage the numbers going through are a lot smaller and those tend to be the ones that have prior experience through Scouts, Guides, Cadets etc. anyway.
I did the Silver awards back in high school. That's where I learnt about compass and map navigation, emergency signals and the like. We'd used to be two days out in the Blue Mountains, often well away from the nearest hiking trail. They gave often gave us a point to get to, often somewhere without a hiking trail reaching it, and we'd have to navigate to that point using a compass and a topographical map of the area.

Still remember it all after <mumble> years.
 
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Thanks. I'll stick with the Six.

Sorry to bang on, but how well/how far does the sound of a whistle carry. Obviously wind direction makes a big difference. I've never managed to get a good volume out of the cheap orange "rescue whistles". Better results with the good old Acme Thunderer!

I suppose if I was stuck and alone it would be late, there'd be less background noise from traffic etc., but I'm still thinking a light signal would be the best thing.

Get an EPIRB. Should be mandatory.
 
The issue being, at least at the level of the Bronze award, that the kids have such a small amount of time training and practicing that their nav is often a series of lucky guesses in well signposted areas. Most of them I wouldn't trust to navigate to a town centre McDonalds having had the same conversation with lots of them over the years about why, if they are trying to find a river, they shouldn't be walking uphill.

It's less of an issue at Silver and especially Gold but by that stage the numbers going through are a lot smaller and those tend to be the ones that have prior experience through Scouts, Guides, Cadets etc. anyway.

Middle Miss F only did Bronze.

They never went to an unknown area and the navigation training appeared to be no more than "This is a compass, it points north" and "This is a map"
 
Get an EPIRB. Should be mandatory.
Can't see that ending well. The amount of crap 999 calls that are made then screened out by the call handler is already ridiculous. Imagine taking the human filter out of the process. There'd be idiots activating their beacons for all sorts of spurious crap with no way to eliminate the trivia. That's before you get all the ill just set it off to see if it's working mongs
 
Can't see that ending well. The amount of crap 999 calls that are made then screened out by the call handler is already ridiculous. Imagine taking the human filter out of the process. There'd be idiots activating their beacons for all sorts of spurious crap with no way to eliminate the trivia. That's before you get all the ill just set it off to see if it's working mongs
'Oooh, I'm a bit tired'.
Next thing, a chopper is on its way... for some fat arse who got a bit wheezy in the sun after a mile and a half.
 
Middle Miss F only did Bronze.

They never went to an unknown area and the navigation training appeared to be no more than "This is a compass, it points north" and "This is a map"
Sounds much like the sprogette's Bronze experience. Here in deepest darkest Norfolkshire the highest point is Beeston Bump, a magnificant 63 m (207 feet in old money) above sea level. Map reading was "go to Joe's folks' place, they own 1/2 of Norfolk, and make your way to the nearest tourist attraction" (obviously well sign-posted). They walked on roads and pathways, some of which were poorly sign-posted, led by Joe, who had grown up in the area.
 
Sorry to bang on, but how well/how far does the sound of a whistle carry. Obviously wind direction makes a big difference. I've never managed to get a good volume out of the cheap orange "rescue whistles". Better results with the good old Acme Thunderer!
I've got a loud dog whistle. If that doesn't attract the rescue crews, it should attract their dogs at least!

I decided to look up the Acme Thunderer to see if it is available here. I found one labelled "Unisex". I was scratching my head over the meaning of that when I realised that if men heard the female whistle, they'd either ignore it or get the meaning completely wrong.
 
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A bit OTT for a walk round the local park.

We're not taking about the local park. If you're walking somewhere you might need a light and whistle to attract rescuers then an EPIRB will get the job done instantly. No need for vague description of your location by phone. But if you go out walking in such a place without an EPIRB then don't expect someone else to risk their life trying to find you.
 
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