This week Peak High Mountaineering presents a four part series in some important aspects of leadership combined with wilderness navigation. We will show a few key points of how to find your way. These are all short extracts from the MDT Mountain Leader Course.
We will be talking about:
1) Leadership and navigation
2) What to trust on a map and what not to trust.
3) How to avoid getting lost in the first place- common errors.
4) Using rivers, lakes and dams to pin down your position.
Firstly, good navigation is perhaps the single most important aspect of leading a wilderness hike in South Africa, or anywhere else in the world.
The navigator = the leader. The person who can find the way accurately and consistently, will always be seen as the leader. Put another way, the leader who cannot find the way properly, will never be listened to in times of troubles, such as when a emergency occurs. Good navigation is the key to having confident leadership in all sorts of situations when out in the hills. The map is everything! If you can read contour lines and map symbols properly, and interpret them with the surrounding terrain, you can find your way anywhere in the world.
For more information on mountain walking courses: gavin@peakhigh.co.za
