By: Blonde One
Our recent walk on Dartmoor involved more than the usual amount of technology. As always we used the OS app to trace our route and provide us with a handy image of where we were. I was also practising with my new Suunto watch to make sure that I properly knew how it worked before hitting the Scottish Munros next month.
I was checking the working of the altimeter so that when I am halfway up the mountain I know exactly how many metres of climb there is left! It’s a clever feature of the watch based on changed in air pressure. You have to calibrate it before you start walking, which you might think is easy. Not so for the Two Blondes struggling with cold fingers and lots of beeping buttons! Eventually though we sorted it out.
En route we also decided to use the OS locate app which is also very good at giving a grid reference and altitude. Comparing the altitude from the watch and phone was interesting and proved that often technology should be used as a guide and not be completely relied upon. As I’ve previously told you the watch also has a thermometer and we were surprised to find that despite the hail it wasn’t as cold as we thought it was. The gadget overload reduced us to giggles at one point as I told Blonde Two that it was 8° (meaning Celsius) and she responded that that made sense as we were heading almost North. She thought I was telling her the compass bearing. It just goes to show that you need to be careful with your gadgets!
At the end of the walk there was only one minor issue that left me feeling slightly dissatisfied … I didn’t use my compass once and I missed it!
I understand what you mean about the compass. I presume you will have one of the Silva models, and there is something tactile about them – a model of classic design – a friend in need.
If you are heading for the Highlands in the next month you will certainly have some winter conditions – I look forward to hearing more.
Definitely a friend in need! I am off to Bonny Scotland at the end of next week. Watch this space!
Use a GPS and have always noticed that the altitude is different on my return to a point, even though I stand on exactly the same spot on the same tree trunk/boulder/cairn. You can’t trust the heights on maps either because mountains rise and fall. There’s a lovely film about a mountain in Wales that was found by the surveyors to be a few feet shorter than it used to be and was no longer a mountain.
Golden rule – ALWAYS take the compass and map. Wish I had your Grandfather ‘s sense of direction though.
I wish I had anybody’s sense of direction other than my own. Still that’s the compass’s job not mine!
I have a suunto watch that must be ten years old now and once calibrated seems to keep reasonably accurate for that day at least. But definitely needs calibration at the start… Just last weekend, setting out, assisting daughters school with Ten Tors Trn, my watch told me I was 350m below sea level !
Anywhere else I would have discounted that, but Dartmoor was so wet I couldn’t be sure!!! ?