If you do limp to civilisation, leaving your bike behind, remember where you left it so that you can retrieve it later on!
This is where marking it with a waypoint works well. Either on a paper map on a physical GPS.
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If you do limp to civilisation, leaving your bike behind, remember where you left it so that you can retrieve it later on!
I'm expecting that there's some ability on the part of the lost rider.
If he doesn't know which way he's going or what a cliff looks like how did he even plan his route ?
You must agree that locating yourself is easier with a GPS device ?
apologies if missed a point - read thread quickly - I would consider getting something like one of the Garmin Etrex20 series - handheld so good off the bike if you need to walk - damn tough - run off two AAs which can be rechargeable and you can take spares - I would always take spare batteries for my garmin on a day ride even if the batteries seem fine/fully charged - you can get sudden drop offs whenever you have two cells.I did download the GPX route from a website. I know the nearby roads quite well but have never ventured up that particular path before so once I was up there the only way I could have got myself down was to retrace my steps.
At the summit of that climb it was featureless apart from the odd valley. You could probably work out where you are using a compass and an OS map (of which I had neither) if not relying on an offline phone map.
I also dropped my phone at the top so cold have broke it - if anything this thread has made me realise that I need some kind of hard copy map and compass if venturing off on my own again. The frame bag with kit in it is the direction I'm going to go for future solo trips.
Oh and a whistle - good tip that.
As for the map reading thing...
I was watching Aussie Gold Hunters a few nights ago and one of the prospectors wandered off in the bush without his walkie talkie or GPS. It took a while to find him. A map would have been completely useless because for many kms there were only tens of thousands of bushes, trees, and vast patches of dirt. No landmarks whatsoever.
We might not have deserts but I know lots of dense forests, mostly not far from where I live.I think your missing the point. We don't have deserts or dense forests !
We do however still have featureless terrain. That boulder you passed by at the roadside wasn't there a similar one further back?I think your missing the point. We don't have deserts or dense forests !
How does that work? If you can't see anything but trees and you don't know where you are, how does the compass help?That is where the compass comes in. Rare that you’ll be using a map without a compass in featureless terrain. On glaciers you also supplement that with an altimeter watch for navigation. But for UK; map and compass are reliable and work in any upland terrain featureless or not.
How does that work? If you can't see anything but trees and you don't know where you are, how does the compass help?
I could see how you could navigate by taking a bearing to e.g. a distinctive bend in a river, the edge of a clearing, whatever...