The Marvellous Map

There's something so satisfyingly reassuring about looking at a map. The look, the feel, the colours, the artwork. Endless possibilities, adventures, outings, exploration. The excitement of planning a route, a day in the hills or a long distance hike. Spreading it out on the table in the depths of winter beside an open fire when the rain is hammering at the window is a deeply pleasurable way to spend a cold, dark afternoon.

Throughout our entire time climbing the Wainwright fells of the Lake District, and our ongoing quest to complete all 116 Outlying fells, we have relied heavily on tried and tested kit and equipment. As mentioned in previous blogs, this vital kit has been honed over a decade and a half, and all of it is trusted implicitly to keep us comfortable and confident in the hills, in all seasons, all weathers and often in fairly remote areas.

One of our most trusted and most used items we always have with us, even on our day to day walks at home, is an invaluable Ordnance Survey map. We have been using these wonderful maps for decades and have a vibrant orange and pink row of them filling an entire shelf. We favour the 1:25 000 scale with the waterproof surface for their detail, but we also use the 1:50 000 scale for gentler days out and about closer to home. We also have the Outdoor Active app on a dedicated Land Rover android telephone which includes a built in GPS antenna, on which we have the OS maps for whichever region we're going to be walking in, and this really has been a game changer.

Many times on walks close to home, we've followed unknown tracks and paths, enabling us to walk further and longer, exploring new areas that we simply wouldn't have found otherwise. Many a time in the middle of a forest, we've found new paths which have been a delight to walk, and I'm sure many a wrong turn has been avoided on many occasions. My brother is a very experienced navigator and also uses the app to record all our walks so we can measure improvements in walking speeds, mileages, elevations and distances; useful for fitness training.  All our walks are stored on the Outdoor Active app, filed by region.

We've been able to successfully navigate our way over totally unfamiliar terrain in totally unfamiliar areas in thick mist and fog without a wrong turn; even managing to shave off distance on more than one occasion. During one 10 mile walk in a new and very remote area in a whiteout, not once did we feel unsure or worried, not once did we go wrong and not once did the OS maps let us down. It was both incredible and reassuring; just the walking companion you need, and can rely on.

We've plotted routes, planned cycle rides, and used them solely to navigate nine years of climbing all 214 Wainwright mountains. They were invaluable to check gradients and whether paths ran close to steep drops and edges, as we had strong dogs with us needing to be kept on leads. We've used them to explore new areas, areas we aren't or weren’t so familiar with, visit places of interest as part of the walks such as stone circles, we've framed them and personalised them. We have also been able to download maps offline so we can still use them in areas where a signal may be a little patchy or non existent.

A paper OS map and a compass are always in our pack, as are our fully charged phones and spare batteries for the GPS device. On more than one occasion we've been able to point people in the right direction by showing them our map, advising them on the right path to take, work out alternative routes if they were way off course, pointing out the fell they're aiming for, warn them of certain areas to avoid or those which might be trickier to cross. Needless to say, on most of these occasions, they weren’t carrying a map…

A map is such a wonderful, inspirational tool to get you out into the great outdoors; travelling, exploring and exercising. What a resource, and how lucky we are to have it.