Why a Compass Still Earns Its Place

Phone batteries die in the cold. Screens crack, GPS drifts in deep valleys, and signal disappears the moment you drop behind a ridge. A map and a baseplate compass have no battery, no firmware and no subscription. They work in sleet, in darkness and after a soaking, which is exactly when you most need them.

Most walkers carry a compass and have never actually used it. That is a shame, because the skills take an afternoon to learn and they change how confident you feel on the hill. You stop following other people's footprints and start making your own decisions.

Know the Tool in Your Hand

A baseplate compass has a handful of parts worth naming before you head out.

• Baseplate — the clear plastic rectangle, with a direction of travel arrow at the front and a ruler or romer scale along the edge for measuring distance.
• Compass housing — the rotating bezel marked in degrees from 0 to 360, with an index line where you read your bearing.
• Magnetic needle — red end points to magnetic north. It must swing freely.
• Orienting arrow and orienting lines — inside the housing, used to line the compass up with the map's grid.

Keep it away from metal. Belt buckles, car keys, phones, walking poles, fence wire and even a magnetic clasp on a rucksack lid will drag the needle. Hold the compass flat, at chest height, and let the needle settle before you trust it.

Taking a Bearing from the Map

Say you are at a stile and want to reach a small tarn two kilometres away across featureless moorland.

• Lay the map flat on the ground or across your knee, and place the long edge of the baseplate so it runs from your position to your destination. The direction of travel arrow points at the tarn.
• Turn the compass housing until the orienting lines sit parallel with the north–south grid lines on the map, and the orienting arrow points to the top of the map. Ignore the needle completely at this stage — you are working on the map, not on the ground.
• Read the number at the index line. That is your grid bearing.
• Check the map margin for the grid magnetic angle — the difference between grid north and magnetic north. In most of the UK it is only a degree or two, and at 1:25,000 that rarely matters on a short leg, but the map tells you the figure and the annual change, so use it.

Write the bearing on your map case with a pencil or a chinagraph. It saves re-doing the sums in a wind.

Following the Bearing on the Ground

Now step away from anything metal and hold the compass flat in front of you, direction of travel arrow pointing away from your chest.

Turn your whole body — feet, hips, shoulders — until the red end of the needle sits neatly inside the orienting arrow. Do not just twist your wrist. When the needle is boxed, the direction of travel arrow is pointing along your bearing.

Look up and pick a distinctive object on that line: a boulder, a lone tree, a crag, the corner of a plantation. Walk to it, then repeat. This is far more accurate than staring at the compass while you walk, and it lets you watch your footing.

In mist, when there is nothing to aim at, use a companion: one person stands still while the other walks forward until they are just visible, then the first person walks up to them. It is slow, but it works.

Aiming Off, Handrails and Pacing

Three techniques turn a bearing into a reliable navigation leg.

• Aiming off — if you are heading for a stream junction or a bridge, deliberately aim a few degrees to one side. You will hit the stream, then follow it to the bridge. Aiming straight at a point on a line often leaves you guessing which way to turn when you arrive.
• Handrails — use walls, fences, streams and ridgelines to catch you. Navigate to the handrail, then follow it.
• Pacing — count double paces (every time your left foot lands) to measure distance. Most adults take roughly 60 to 70 double paces per 100 metres on flat ground. Measure your own on a football pitch or a measured footpath, and adjust for uphill, bog and heavy rucksacks.

On a 1:25,000 map, one centimetre is 250 metres; on a 1:50,000 map it is 500 metres. Know which you are carrying before you start.

Practise Before You Need It

Do not learn this on a Cairngorm plateau in February. Start on a local footpath you know well, take a bearing to a gate and walk it. Then do the same with your hood up or one eye closed, so you cannot see the landscape and have to trust the needle.

Before any hill day, tell someone your route and expected return, carry a paper map in a waterproof case, a torch, a whistle and spare layers. Then take five minutes at home to practise three bearings. It is the cheapest insurance in the rucksack — and it never runs out of charge.