Why the paper map still earns its place

There is a particular sort of quiet that descends when the phone signal dies, the cloud rolls in over the ridge and the little blue dot starts spinning on the screen. A paper map and a baseplate compass need no battery, no signal and no app update. They need you to know how to use them.

The good news is that the skills are straightforward. Half an hour at the kitchen table with a map spread out and a compass in your hand will teach you more than a dozen videos. What follows is the practical core: grid references, bearings and contour lines — the three things that turn a map from a pretty picture into a working tool.

Getting to grips with the map itself

Start with the scale. The two you will meet most often are 1:25,000, which shows field boundaries, walls and footpaths in lovely detail, and 1:50,000, which gives you a wider view for planning a long day out. On the larger-scale sheet, one centimetre on paper is 250 metres on the ground; on the smaller scale, one centimetre is 500 metres. Either way, the blue grid lines are spaced one kilometre apart.

Those grid lines give you grid references, and the rule to remember is along the corridor, up the stairs — eastings first, then northings.

• Four-figure references, such as 61 54, put you in a one-kilometre square. Fine for saying roughly where you parked.
• Six-figure references, such as 612 543, narrow it down to 100 metres by splitting each square into tenths. This is what mountain rescue and the emergency services use, so it is worth learning properly.

Take time to read the legend on your own map. On the larger-scale sheets, green dashed lines mark public footpaths, and rights of way are shown separately from paths that are merely tolerated by the landowner — worth knowing before you climb a gate that turns out to be private. Also check the date on the cover. A map a decade old will have new fences, a diverted path and quite possibly a bypass that was not there when it was printed.

What contour lines are telling you

Contours are the map's way of drawing three dimensions on a flat sheet. The interval is usually 5 metres on the larger-scale sheets and 10 metres on the smaller. Where the lines bunch together, the ground is steep; where they sit far apart, it is gentle.

• Rings of contours getting smaller and smaller, one inside another, mark a summit or a knoll.
• A V-shape pointing uphill is a re-entrant — a gully or a stream valley.
• A V-shape pointing downhill is a spur, a tongue of high ground sticking out from the hill. Spurs make excellent handrails to follow.
• Read the numbers printed along the lines and you can tell whether you are looking at a 200 metre shoulder or a 900 metre top.

Tracing your route on paper before you leave is the most useful preparation there is. If you can already see that you will cross two streams and climb 300 metres, you will not be surprised when you do.

Taking a bearing without the panic

A bearing is simply the direction you want to travel, measured in degrees clockwise from north. Here is the sequence:

• Lay the compass on the map with the long edge of the baseplate running from where you are to where you want to be. The direction of travel arrow should point at your destination.
• Turn the rotating bezel until the orienting lines inside it line up with the blue north–south grid lines on the map, with the orienting arrow pointing to the top of the sheet.
• Lift the compass off the map and hold it flat in front of you. Turn your whole body until the red end of the magnetic needle sits neatly inside the orienting arrow — put red in the bed.
• Read the number at the index line. That is your bearing.
• Finally, glance at the compass rose printed in the map margin. It shows the difference between grid north and magnetic north. In Britain this is small, generally a degree or two, but it grows as you head west, so make the adjustment if the diagram calls for it.

Walking on that bearing

This is the part people find hardest. Following a bearing means ignoring the needle. Once the bezel is set, keep the needle inside the arrow, hold the compass level and walk in the direction the direction-of-travel arrow points — looking up at the landscape, not down at the dial.

Distance is the other half of the job. Count double paces (every time your left foot lands) and calibrate yourself on a known 100 metre stretch. Most adults take roughly 65 on the flat, and rather more uphill. Timing is easier still: about 4 kilometres an hour on level ground, plus roughly a minute for every 10 metres of climbing.

Two tricks will keep you honest. Aiming off means deliberately setting a bearing a few degrees to one side of your target, so that when you hit the path or stream you know whether to turn left or right. Catching features — a wall, a road, a river — stop you wandering past your objective in poor visibility.

Habits that keep you right

Keep the map in a clear case, folded so the section you need is on the outside, and the compass on a lanyard round your neck rather than buried in a rucksack pocket. Carry a spare compass on remote days, and treat your phone as a backup rather than a plan.

Tell someone your route and your expected return time. Check the mountain weather forecast before you set out. Practise on a familiar walk first — set the map by compass, take a bearing to a gate, and see whether you arrive where you expected. These skills fade without use, but they come back quickly, and they will carry you far beyond the paths you already know.