That went well!

Last year, we did a Navigation Training Day at the local forest and I did not enjoy it. I think I felt a little unprepared and out of my depth.

So this year, I planned ahead.

Yesterday I prepared a route sheet, like the participants have to for their expeditions. I thought it would be good practice as, although I have checked through their work, I’ve never made one up myself and they have never had to check through someone else’s work. This way, we could all learn.

It worked really well, my route sheet was (surprisingly) accurate and the group were able to follow it easily and we didn’t get lost. Apart from the path they took that wasn’t marked, but they very quickly realised and returned to their last known position (spot on) and found the path they wanted. And the path that was marked and there but they couldn’t see it because of the structure erected since the maps were made. They took a path going vaguely the right way, then when they met a path they judged would meet the track they wanted, they took it.

Everything was done with discussion and team work, decisions well made and executed. I was well pleased.

If you go down to the woods today…

Lunchtime bothy bag

Sharing the cookies…

And I’m going to count this as TGO training ‘cos it’s my blog and I can!

Roughly 6.84 miles and 348 ft of ascent.

Actually, brilliant fun, what an ace group I have! (The other one is a bit, iffy.)