september 06

staying unlost

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Hill walkers, just like library books, sometimes find themselves overdue and even lost. And, just as a lost library book might find itself down the side of a seat on the number 90 bus, so might the detoured hillwalker find themselves dealing with some seriously negative outcomes. There have been just over 200 mountain rescue (MR) reports of lost walkers in the Cumbrian Lake District during the last 6 years, something like one every 10 days, some involving fatalities.

These incidents represent the most serious cases of people being lost where, desperate for help, they phone 999 sending mountain rescue onto the fells.

What the statistic doesn't account for are the presumable many thousands more cases which go unreported every year because eventually and somehow people find their way back from being lost. With visitor numbers around 12m a year, the Lake District must create, on a more or less serious level, tens of thousands of lost walkers annually.

Many of the sites relating walkers' experiences or which encourage hill ('fell') walking in the Lakes, give the impression that rather than going unprepared, often people just go badly prepared. As far as staying unlost is concerned, many organisations, including mountain rescue, recommend taking, instead of the chatty guidebook, 'a map, compass (and the ability to use them).' But is that enough to stay out of the bog early evening at 350m?

There is a range of maps available to walkers although it isn't an expansive one. While some smaller publishers are putting out maps, the main source is Ordnance Survey (OS) which produces 2 maps for recreational countryside use - the 1:50,000 'Landranger' and the 1:25,000 'Explorer'. Apart from the scale, the main difference between the two is that the Explorer has more detailed marking of paths.

There is, however, a high level of credulity with which walkers and walking organisations treat the OS maps, particularly the 1:25,000 version - supposedly the definitive walking map.

The 1:25,000 scale has a great amount of detail, detail chosen because of its interest to walkers and other countryside users - footpaths of different kinds, access land boundaries, etc. - but at 4cm to 1km, the map produces miniscule representations of massive features, making getting lost still a realistic possibility for every map carrier who yet knows how to use a compass.

Loughrigg fell, for example, a popular walking hill near Ambleside, is, on an Explorer map, a 40cm² upland area criss-crossed by tiny paths weaving between hundreds of tiny outcrops of rock; it's a place also crowded with tiny contour lines, spot heights, overprinting location names and watercourses. At this size, the nuances of the cartography - the slightest bend of a path or stream - are too small to be practically comparable with the nuances of the landscape, a place where paths are unwaymarked, not well trodden and, when visible at all, quite possibly just another winding sheep track. In this situation, it is easy to walk 100m further than the required next left turn and end up way off course.



OS Explorer OL7 1:25,000 map - detail at actual size showing Loughrigg fell
(actual size when viewed with a screen size of 1024x768 pixels)





the same map at actual size enlarged to 1:10,000



It would seem fairly obvious that a map with a bigger scale would make it easier to navigate this kind of terrain. As Håvard Tveite, of the Norwegian Orienteering Federation mapping committee put it, 'For map reading, the larger the map scale - the better.' The debate in orienteering has been between 1:10,000 maps for best legibility and 1:15,000 for legibility plus route overview or larger mapped area.

That 1:15,000 maps are considered at all in this discussion is down to the fact that orienteers won't carry maps bigger than A3 size. Route overview is of course more than possible on a 1:10,000 map, it just requires more paper, something walkers are used to dealing with.

Lake District, indeed national, 1:10,000 maps, a 250% enlargement of the 1:25,000 scale, were published by the OS into the 1980s at which point the government agency discontinued the scale for countryside leisure use. Since 2001 OS has produced 1:10,000 'Landplan' maps, a digital product 'designed primarily for business use'. ¹

Landplan sheets, which are ordered individually, cover 5km² and offer customised cartographic content for specific sites. It's very expensive mapping. A rough calculation prices this information, at £2.20/km² compared to the Explorer at 0.0125p/km² - an increase of over 17600%. If a Landplan map was enlarged to the same papersize as a single side Explorer map, it would cost around £220.00.²

OS justifies making 1:10,000 information exclusive, and in fact unusable for walkers, on commercial grounds but then, ignoring the expertise of the world's orienteers, goes on to claim that a 1:10,000 map is not only unnecessary for walkers' safety or improved hill navigation but would be more dangerous than a 1:25,000 map:

'Safety is a primary consideration for Ordnance Survey and we have consulted with various interested parties including mountain rescue organisations, who use the Explorer maps, to ensure that the correct information is included on Explorer maps and that it can be interpreted easily by experienced and novice map users.

'One of the main observations we receive is that the Explorer maps are often too cluttered and complex for novice map users to understand. This would be made worse if we were to use the current 1:10,000 scale map specification as this product contains far more detailed information.

'In support of the Explorer maps we produce map reading leaflets which are available as a free download from our website. These have been compiled by ex-military personnel who have a strong understanding of map reading and micro-navigation and now teach map reading to wide audiences countrywide.

'When designing maps it is always going to be difficult to meet everyone's needs and a lot depends on the level of knowledge of the map user. We have heard many stories from the mountain rescue organisations that people [who get lost in areas like the Lake District] do not have maps or are not prepared for the sudden changes in weather conditions associated with the popular walking areas.'

This is a totally bogus argument which might sound plausible because it's deceptively vague. Yes, expert navigators are better map readers than novice navigators and might make a better job of reading a 1:25,000 map in difficult circumstances. But if an expert map reader would prefer a 1:10,000 map then why wouldn't a novice map reader? 'More clutter, even more difficult to read for the novice,' says OS.

But the basic mistake is to assume that a 1:10,000 walking map has to be the same as a 1:10,000 business map with whatever extra information that might carry. Why would it not be possible to rescale the existing Explorer maps to 1:10,000, so doing away with any worrysome extra clutter but providing better representation of existing detail?

Apart from Norwegian repeat world championship medal winning orienteers - other experienced map reading names and organisations support the idea that 'For map reading, the larger the map scale - the better.' Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue, for example, carry 1:10,000 as well as 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 maps. It would be surprising if other MR teams didn't do the same.

Climbers of Ben Nevis observe that, 'Many people have died descending into Five Finger Gully due to navigational errors, beware! (The 1:25,000 Mountain Master of Ben Nevis has an inset map of the top of the Ben in 1:10,000 scale, very useful.),' while the Harveys Superwalker, a 1:10,000 map of the Malvern Hills, is advertised by one outdoor leisure site as having 'the detail you need for sure navigation and safety.'

Then, there's Alfred Wainwright himself who, in a lifetime walking the Lakeland hills, reportedly 'favoured the 6": 1 mile (1:10,000) when he was doing his detailed surveys of the fells.'




a 1mm detail on a 1:25,000 map


Having discounted the idea that a small scale map is better than a large scale map for navigating your immediate environment, the remaining problem would seem to be the route overview limitations of the bigger scale - or, as OS put it:

'There is also a logistical issue in that there are four Explorer maps that cover the Lake District. These have been printed back to back so that a walker has a good area of coverage and is able to set compass bearings on mountain peaks or other landscape features.

'This would not be possible with the 1:10,000 scale map series, as they only cover an area of 5km x 5km. It would require approximately 84 sheets of 1:10,000 scale maps to cover the Lake District, which we would deem less practical for the vast majority of outdoor pursuits.'

Again, this is a totally spurious argument. If the 1:25,000 Explorer maps were rescaled to 1:10,000 and then printed at the same size as the 1:25,000 maps (approx 9600cm²) they would show, at 10cm to 1km, 96km² areas not 25km² as the OS version has it. This would mean around 20 maps instead of 84 and only a dozen if they were printed back to back.

The average length of a walk in the Lake District is less than 20km, often half that. Walks tend to be circular, meaning the maximum distance in one direction is likely to be 10km. Areas covered by such walks would easily fit on one or two 1:10,000 maps which would have a reach of 8-12km in one direction and, like MR, walkers could still carry a 1:25,000 map. So when OS says there is a 'logistical' problem, what it actually means is there's a commercial problem. When it talks about safety issues, it only does so within the limits of its existing 1:25,000 product.

It seems ridiculous that thousands of walkers get lost in the Lake District every year and a good proportion of them will no doubt be carrying 1:25,000 maps. The mapping has been done and it would be quite possible for 1:10,000 maps of the area (and other areas of difficult walking terrain) to be made widely available at an affordable price. It would be a public service.

OS, as a quasi-corporate arm of government, is going in a different direction, however, as it follows the profit motive. Despite the denials, there is a policy of information containment which puts people at risk and once the PR talk is done, OS makes it plain that public service is not part of its remit - except and insofar as it coincides with its market interests:

'Ordnance Survey is financed through data licensing, a proportion of which is received from our Options stockists. We re-invest a significant amount of these royalties to ensure that any changes to the landscape are captured as they occur. Our map data base is maintained, and updated with around 5,000 changes daily. The only funding we receive from the government is for specific activities that are vital to the national interest, but which cannot be justified on purely commercial grounds.'

A poll of walkers on this issue would provide some interesting results.

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notes

¹ OS quoted from correspondence May 2006
² based on comparison with Explorer 265