Re: DofE rescue

In article <7I1Ij.26817$Ff4.6200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Chris Gilbert <Christopher.Gilbert@xxxxxxxxxx> writes
I was out walking with my father in law yesterday when we
came across a group of Duke of Edinburgh award lads. We
get them a lot in the Peak but this lot were quite lost. They'd
made an alarming misnavigation, taking a route along the
right hand, deep, steep-sided valley instead of following
the river along left hand option. Pretty fundamental stuff.
Since they were only on thier practice walk for the real
thing in July it was OK for me to put them back on the
right route but it became apparant chatting to them that
none of them had the slightest idea of how to read a map.
What bothered me the most was that they were training for
thier silver award and, someone please correct me if I've
got the wrong end of the stick, but surely you'd not get
past bronze without having at least a modicum of working
knowledge of maps ?

They don't have to do the bronze first to do the silver or gold.

They will have had some training but that doesn't mean it has sunk in. As this was their practice it may well have been the first time they have been let out on their own to see how they do.

I found when helping supervise gold and silver expeditions there would often be one or two people in each group who had a reasonable level of navigational skills and the other members would rely on them. This meant that the work of the 'navigator' was not being checked by other group members so when mistakes were made they might not be spotted for a while.

The ideal scenario of all group members being able to navigate to a reasonable standard and bothering to keep an eye on where they were going was sadly quite rare.

It wasn't unusual for bronze groups to take a convoluted route but only one group went missing in the seven years I helped out. I managed to spot an aimless group from a high vantage point and it turned out to be them. That was a practise day too.

I was not involved in the training other than giving practical hints when meeting them on the hill. It was often hard to get them to understand the concepts...

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Dominic Sexton
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