The lost art of navigation?

[Stolly]

OS maps though don't show runners trods and the green dotted lines are just the public rights of way so merely by following paths marked on maps you can just end up going the 'boring' way . And no green dotted lines appear on OS maps of the Scottish Highlands at all do they so, up there, its only by covering the ground that you know what the trails are like or even if they exist (well that or buying a mountain walks guide book ). That said I just love exploring - looking at a map before the off, doing my best to remember a few features and then just bash off out (without the map) and see how I get on and what I find out.

I think I've more or less done the whole of the south and south west of the Yorkshire Dales this way, since moving to Settle 5 years ago. Nowadays I like to think that I know the whole shebang, and everything in between, encircled by a line going west from Skipton to Settle and Ingleton, then north via Gragareth and Great Coum to Dent, north east to Great Knoutberry, Dodd Fell, Great Shunner Fell, much of Wendsleydale east of Hawes, the Fleet Moss and Middle Tongue ridgeline above Langstrothdale, Buckden Pike and Great Whernside, Capplestone Gate, the top end of Nidderdale, the Dales way from Kettlewell to Grassington, south west via Appletreewick to Simon's Seat, south west to Beamsley Beacon and back towards to Skipton over Skipton Moor and High Bradley Moor. At a guess that must be 500 square miles and I pretty much know all the paths, trods, waterfalls, trigs, summits, rivers, becks and nooks of crannies of the lot