Contour Only Maps

Today we took a trip down to the Yarrow Valley West of Megget Reservoir in The Scottish Borders for some Contour only navigation training using these specially created contour only maps produced by Harvey Maps. These maps, as the name suggests, only have the contour lines and grid squares.

Where do I get Contour Only Maps From?

You can get contour only maps from Harvey Custom Maps. They have a list of what information they need to produce your contour only map:

Map area required – grid references of the upper-left and bottom-right corners of the mapping required
Map purpose – if you can tell us what the map will be used for we will be able to assist you more easily
Scale – your preferred map scale. For example 1:25,000 or 1:40,000? (bear in mind this affects the final paper size of your map)
Map format – do you require a digital map or a printed map?
Number of copies required?
Supplementary information on the map or in the layout?
Timeframe – when do you need to receive the finished map?

And then contact them via the email address they provide and they will sort out your maps for you.

Contour Only Navigation Training - Navigating with a contours only map in the Scottish Borders

What makes contour only maps different?

These contour only maps have no streams marked, no roads, no fences, trees or boundaries. There are no forests marked or hill names. Nothing but contour lines and the 1Km blue grid squares. It’s a great way to strip your navigation back to basics and concentrate on the ground beneath your feet and the terrain around you. These contour only maps really make you think about what the ground is doing and not relying on other clues you would normally use when out walking in the hills.

Why would I practice using contour only maps?

Contours are the one navigation constant on a map that you can rely on. Everything else can change over time. Woods are planted and felled, especially up here in Scotland, fences taken down or moved (yup, fallen foul of that one before), water courses change over time and paths & tracks can be wrong, sometimes by quite some distance. We walked the Ettrick Horseshoe and one block of forestry that was marked on the map at the summit of Ettrick Pen didn’t exist at all. It wasn’t that it had been felled and you could see the raptor posts, tree stumps and brash. There was literally nothing there.

When practicing contour only navigation you are navigating with just the contours and the grid squares to give you an idea of scale. You really have to read the ground around you. You have to pay attention to the spacing between the the contours (Harvey maps contours are at 15m intervals with index contours, the thick ones, at 75m, this is because OS maps have the trademark on 10m contours!) to describe what the ground is doing and picture this in your head. Slope aspect is also a key tool, for example, is that slope facing NW or NE? When does it change? How are the contours changing?

Travel to Unravel

Prior to navigating a leg you will build up a picture in your mind using the 5 D’s of navigation.

Direction
Distance
Duration
Destination
Description

Direction, that’s the easy one. Where are we going? Which direction? Then you build up that picture, how far is it? How long should it take me? What am I walking towards abd what will I see, feel and hear along the way. How steep will it be, what features will I pass and what features tell me I’ve gone too far.

The phrase Travel to unravel means that as you move, you unravel the story that you described to yourself. This is where our Shaven Raspberry timing and pacing cards are handy. I’m not great at maths and if you’re not doing this all the time it’s really easy to forget how long it should take you to walk 200m (it’s 3 minutes at 4km).

Move to Prove

When you get to your destination or are trying to work out where you are (yes, I get lost a lot), it’s time to move to prove. All too often I see people stop, get their map out and not look up. For now, leave the map. Look up. Look at the ground under your feet, what is it doing? Is it flat, sloping, if so, how much and where? Now look further, what can you see, build up a picture in your head of what you see.

Walk about, go over that ridge, walk around that bend, move closer to the edge. It is all too easy to get fixated on what is immediately around you and then stuff your head back in the map. Resist this temptation and take a walk about. Sometimes walking just a few metres around you opens up the landscape and all of a sudden you realise you aren’t exactly where you thought you were. It’s a good tip and one I try to remember.