MOUNTAIN NAVIGATION

 

Fiona and Calum were out on a 1 day Navigation course today. I was guiding for Steven Fallon Guiding. 

It was a beautiful morning so I decided to cycle form the house up to the Coire Cas carpark to meet the Brother and Sister team. Its always a beautiful bike tmride, especially on a glorious morning like we had with sunshine and no wind and not hot. Only spoiled by some inconsiderate and sometimes dangerous driving by a small minority of motorists. There's been a 30mph compulsory speed limit on the stretch of road alongside Loch Morlich for a few weeks now. Some people were just blatantly ignoring this. 

Fiona and Calum have a good amount of mountain experience under their belt already. Many years experience of walking in the Scottish mountains and Fiona has climbed half of the Munros already. So we discussed what they wanted to get out of the day and concentrated on pathless terrain, taking bearings on featureless ground and lots of timing and pacing. 

It was a glorious afternoon, sunny and visibility was superb. Always seems to be the case when running navigation courses. Never get cloud when you want it! It was a great day and they went away with some new skills to put into practice for their week long holiday in the Highlands. I'm sure their Munro tally will increase and confident of ability in any weather the coming days will throw at them.

It was a much more pleasant ride back down the hill late afternoon. :)