Here to Help You Find Your Own Way
Navigating in the highlands is harder than just following a path- most of our walks don’t even involve paths! And with spotty phone signal at best, the only reliable way of navigating is the old-fashioned way: with a paper map and a compass.
Training
There are lots of opportunities to improve your mountain craft as part of the club.
On trips, walk organisers will try to get the whole group involved in navigating and teach you some of the basic skills.
However, to reach a high standard you’ll need both professional training and experience. We offer (and heavily subsidise) lots of training events. These include weekend courses at Firbush, the University’s Outdoor Centre on Loch Tay, to provide members with professional training in navigation and winter skills.
Mountaineering Scotland (previously the Mountaineering Council of Scotland) also runs courses at Glenmore Lodge that are offered at heavily discounted prices to members. There are, however, limited places available, so keep your eyes open for announcements!
We also run a First Aid Course each year, as we like to have a first aider present on every walk – the more the better, so please consider doing it when the time comes.You can find all of our upcoming training events on our calendar.
Also take a look at the Mountaineering Scotland Events Calender for both student subsidised (which will be advertised via the mailing list) and non-student courses at full prices.
As well as practical courses, we hope to organise some lectures from MS on topics such as navigation, winter safety and avalanche awareness.
There are also a few useful texts in our Further Reading Page
Be the leader your fellow walkers need
The more Walk Organisers (WO’s) we have on each trip, the more walks we’re able to do. This means more variety, smaller groups, and less waiting around for the back of your group to catch up!
Generally, WO’s volunteer and are vetted by the committee, but if you meet the following qualifications, you might be ready to organise walks on club trips:
Walked a minimum of 15 mountain days.
Been on a minimum of 3 trips with the club.
Have attended relevant navigation courses.
Have other previous experience.
Every walk has one WO and one “Second”, who is responsible for double checking the WO’s bearings. If you’ve never done any navigation before, talk to the Second or WO on your trip and they’d be happy to show you the basics of navigation.
We’ve attached an example route card below for the convenience of our WO’s. These must be filled out for every walk.