Half day Navigation Skills Training Course in The Lake District. Friday, May 2nd 2014.

Martin Harris booked a half day Navigation Skills Training Course with us quite some time ago. Together with his mate Marvin ( in the red fleece), he traveled over from East Yorkshire, enjoyed a night in Ambleside and then met Iain in Staveley at our usual meeting point outside of Wilf's Cafe on Friday morning.

Iain took the pair to Green Quarter Fell starting via the usual route up Hall Lane to Park House (photo one). Along the way Iain stressed the importance of correctly orientating the map using the compass, We also discussed the merits of the various map scales as well as measuring and pacing distance as we proceeded along Hall Lane, past Park House and on to the bridleway leading on to Green Quarter Fell - identifying tick off features en route.

Martin & Marvin both turned up with a GPS each however, the emphasis of our Lake District Navigation Skills Training Courses are to give you the basic skills to find your way around using a map & compass only.

The pair thoroughly enjoyed Iain's input in getting them to identify from the map to ground and also from ground to map and Martin, in particular, found learning this skill most rewarding.

By the time photo two was taken, we had gone on to discuss how to find a location on the map using Grid References and how to use the compass to take; and then walk on a bearing.

Time flew as it always seems to on our Navigation Skills Training Courses in The Lake District - but the pair had only booked a half day. We had time to cover just a few more legs using pacing and the compass and we also had to "box" around a marsh as well.

So despite only having a half day out map reading with Iain, the pair were given a lot of Navigation Skills input and were fortunately able to pick things up quickly. They were both very satisfied with what was covered in the available time.

If you would like a bespoke half day Navigation Skills Training Session in The Lake District then we will happily run one for you but would really recommend a full day out. However, if you want to get best value then you should consider booking on to one of our weekend courses run (provided we get a minimum of four persons booking) at only £80 each for the weekend course. Check out our website here for details!