NNAS Bronze Award – Navigation Course in the Shropshire Hills

For the last two days, I’ve been running a NNAS Bronze Award navigation course for three keen walkers from London, Kent and Hertforshire. Each of them have an involvement with the Ramblers and want to be able to lead groups in the countryside. Although they all had different levels of experience, they each wanted to develop their skills and confidence with map work to help them in this role.

I have used a number of areas for these courses before, but selected the Shropshire Hills on this occasion due to the variety of options it offers. With an extensive network of rights of way and a large area of access land incorporating a web of hills and valleys, it’s a fantastic area to teach and practise navigation at a range of levels. The fact that it is incredibly beautiful (when you can see it at least), is an added bonus.

We spent Friday in the Hope Bowdler area, and stuck very much to the rights of way. Looking at the maps more closely than in the past, revealed a level of detail that most of the group hadn’t been aware of before. Introducing basic skill of orientating the map, measuring distances and timing made a big difference. The only stumbling block was often difficulties with the arithmetic – unfortunately for some, a vital skill in accurate navigation. However, we managed to come up with some useful tips to ease the problem. During the day, we also spent time talking through issues such as clothing, equipment, access legislation and emergency procedures. Although we didn’t cover much distance, by the time we returned to the cars, we’d actually been going for quite some time and concentration was beginning to fade.

Standing on our rock outcrop after 1km of walking on two bearings
Standing on our rock outcrop after 1km of walking on two bearings

Saturday morning saw us meeting near the top of the Long Mynd. As well as lots of practice on things covered yesterday, the main things we covered were pacing, compass work and an introduction to contour interpretation. We actually spent a fair bit of time away from the beaten track, which is actually beyond the Bronze level of the award, but seemed appropriate for the group. One exercise we tried involved combining taking bearings, measuring distances, walking on bearings and pacing as we tried a ‘dog leg’ route across some very open ground. The combined distance it covered was 1km and, when all of our pacing and compass work was done, there was still no sign of the rock outcrop we were heading for. However, to everyone’s amazement, 20m further on it appeared as if from nowhere. It’s great when people get to really appreciate that these skills really do work!

These courses do involve an element of assessment, but I try to keep it as low key as possible. So, after lunch, I started to get everyone navigating on their own for sections. As much as possible, this was back on the rights of way, within the remit of the award. There were a few nervous uncertainties, but everyone managed to effectively navigate their way around, which was good to see.

It’s been great to enjoy the last two days with everyone. I hope that they found it useful – I can certainly see a difference in both ability and confidence, which is always encouraging. It’s now time to take all those new skills and practice them without me as a back up.

2 thoughts on “NNAS Bronze Award – Navigation Course in the Shropshire Hills”

  1. I am excited one day a week since attending the navigation course to follow the map probably in a radius of 35miles from home in the winter and farther afield in the summer.
    I am still talking about it and gathered together some items that were recommended in our packs.
    Moreover the real challenge is to go out alone…..in a new area and thanks to your course and tution I feel I can do that now.
    My ramblers walk last Sunday we all stopped and I took the bearing many asking what we were looking for and I was able to say you will see in a minute.
    I have learnt navigation is fun and addictive we think all our ramblers leaders will be taking note.
    Thanks to Martin for giving me the appetite and knowledge not forgetting support if needed

  2. This course confirmed everything I knew and then took me further into the map to find lots of things I didn’t know. I will now explore with much more confidence. Many thanks and well done to Martin for putting on an excellent course for just the three of us. I will pass on the word and try to get more leaders to attend in the future.

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