A Little Thing I Learned

My last post mentioned how I got a little disorientated whilst on my last hike, but what it didn't say was how I resolved my situation entirely.

Now the whole reason I got into the situation was mainly because I didn't take a map with me, plus the fact that a lot of the paths looked fairly similar. As a result I had trouble pinpointing whether I was on the right track beyond memory and intuition. I did however have a compass, which proved to be useful in that I could check I was going in roughly the right direction. It would not be able to tell me though if I had gone too far in a certain direction.

I also had my mobile phone with me, both for safety, pictures, and because I like to track my hiking and cycling routes. In this case, I was using Strava to track my hike and I realised that even if the map behind it wasn't loading, due to poor signal, I could still see my location relative to where I'd been. This was fortunate in my case, because I could see that unless the path I was on took a major detour, I was on track to meet back up with path I'd been on earlier and hence able to complete my somewhat circular route.

Personally, I think this is quite a useful tip and can count as another reason why you should take your phone with you on hikes. I don't know how many other people have thought this, probably quite a few, but for me this was a bit of a revelation.

Anyways, thanks for reading and hope you find this at least a little interesting if not useful.