Planning Your First Walk

So now you’ve got the gist of what we do each week wouldn’t you like to have a go yourself? Thought so. Navigation is a subject matter that can be quite simple or can be horrendously complex. At its most basic it is the process of getting from A – B, or in our case from A – A via some nice scenery and a pub. Getting from A – A is in fact a great way to learn. If you start small enough you can navigate with A still in view. As your confidence grows you can get further away from your start location.

I'd say we're about here.

There are several considerations when choosing a route. The most important that will affect every other decision is; how long do you want to walk for? This is not the same as; how far do you want to walk? Five miles in the Lake District can take far longer than ten miles in Lincolnshire. I would suggest your first walk is about ninety minutes, that way if you underestimate your abilities you’ll still get a good hour and if you overestimate your abilities you won’t be back the next day some time. Naismith’s rule states that; you should cover 4km in every hour adding a minute for every contour line crossed. Great, but you’re not going to see much at that pace and what’s a contour line? And didn’t we defeat Napoleon so we didn't have to use a kilometre anyway? I would say allow for walking at around 2 miles an hour. Whilst this may sound slow, this is an average. Remember, you will stop to look at things, check your map, climb fences, and get lost etc.

Saying NO! to kilometres since 1815.

So with this in mind our first walk should be around three miles. After a few walks you’ll begin to get a good grasp of how quickly you cover certain types of ground. The easiest way to check distance is to use the edge of a piece paper to measure your route and then place it against the distance scale at the bottom of the map. Start with a corner of the paper at your starting point and place the edge along the route until it bends. Mark the paper here. Then move the paper round so it follows to the next bend and make another mark. Keep going all around the route until you get back to the beginning. Place the corner of the paper on the distance measure at the bottom of the map and hey presto, this is how far your route is. The video below explains it all. If this is too tedious just use Google Earth like I do. Eventually you’ll be able to do this by eye using the grid lines but that’s for another post.

So what are we looking for on our map? Depends on what map you’ve got. We’re quite lucky in the UK that we have Ordnance Survey. This means the whole country is covered by a standardised system of mapping. This is certainly not the case in many other countries. I tend to use 1:25000 scale maps. These are called the Explorer Map and come with an orange cover. The alternative is the Landranger Map. These are 1:50000 scale and have a pink cover. The Landranger has the advantage that it covers four times the area of the Explorer but this also means it’s four times less detailed. This is a great aid to getting lost. The Explorer shows individual fields which can be invaluable at times. The downside with the Explorer is that they come in many different shapes and sizes but all cost the same. The larger maps are also printed on both sides which is phenomenally annoying if your walk covers both sides. Try unfolding and refolding your map in a stiff breeze when it’s raining. I get all my maps from dash4it. Theirs are so much cheaper than everywhere else. I don’t know how they do it and don’t really care. Expect for an Explorer map to pay about £5 there and £8.99 everywhere else.

The Explorer Series 1:25000

Now we have our map we need to find a path. On the Explorer these are represented by green dashed lines. The smaller dashes are footpaths and the longer dashes denote a bridleway. Whilst both are perfectly permissive, a bridleway is primarily designed for horses and may feature some water features which are impassable to those on foot who don’t want waterlogged boots. But bridleways are generally more open and have better access to enable a horse to transit them. Some footpaths can be quite a fight to get through if the council hasn’t maintained them. So we are looking for somewhere on the map where the green dashed lines make a loop. Other routes we can transit are roads but you’ll need to be aware how each type of road is represented on the map. Check the key on the side of the map to see how each type of road is represented on the map. The smaller and quieter the road, the better.

The map, completely explained in one simple, easy to follow diagram.

Now we have our loop we need to check it is passable all the way around. The major showstopper here as already mentioned is water. This is represented as twisty blue lines on the map. I say twisty as they shouldn’t be confused with the grid lines which cover the whole map. Britain isn’t covered by one kilometre square islands. Again, I’ll cover these in another post. If there is water we need to check there is a crossing. This is either via footbridge or a ford. A ford for the uninitiated is a part of the waterway that’s shallow enough to walk through. Obviously this depends on what footwear you have on. If this is your first walk try and avoid water altogether or you may end up getting either frustrated or worse, wet and then you may not want to go walking again. You’re doing this to enjoy yourself, remember? The other big game changer on a walk is the contour of the land, how steep it is. A map is a flat representation of a three dimensional environment. Hills are represented by contour lines. These are very thin orange lines that cover the entire map (unless you live in Lincolnshire and then you’ll have no idea what a hill is). These lines are spaced at 10m intervals of elevation. This means the closer the lines, the steeper the hill. So for your first walk avoid close concentrations of these lines. This is something else that will be covered in more detail in future posts.

A possible walking route. Be aware of a short walk along a main road. Wear hi vis and a helmet. And tell someone where you're going. And wear knee pads too.

So now we have a route planned, we hope. We are going to walk about three miles in about ninety minutes without straying onto a dual carriageway, without getting wet and without climbing our local mountain by accident. So now you’re eager to get out there.  So next time I’ll cover what sort of kit and equipment you’ll need to take and then after that we’ll cover what to do out on the ground. By then you should well and truly have the explorer bug! Well anticipation is half the fun isn’t it? Until next time.

Napoleon picture from: http://a2.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,h_1200,q_80,w_1200/MTIwNjA4NjMzMjIxNzExMzcy.jpg