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learning > distance
Distance
There are two main parts to being in control of how far you are travelling during a walk - timing and pacing.
Timing
William Naismith created the standard rule for predicting distance travelled in an amount of time. Naismith's rule is 5 km per hour plus 1 minute for every 10 metres of climbing. However, your group may not walk as fast as Naismith, so here is a table for different speeds and distances:
| Distance \ Speed |
3 km/h |
4 km/h |
5 km/h |
| 100 m |
2 mins |
1 min 30 secs |
1 min 12 secs |
| 250 m |
5 mins |
3 mins 45 secs |
3 mins |
| 500 m |
10 mins |
7 mins 30 secs |
6 mins |
| 1 km |
20 mins |
15 mins |
12 mins |
Add 1 minute for every 10 metres of climbing (usually 1 contour on the map but check start and finish heights as some maps show alternate contours only on steep ground). Dependent on the speed of your group you can also add 1 minute for every 20 or 30 metres of steep descent.
So, for a group that is walking at 4 km/h, how long will it take to do a leg of the walk which is 800m and includes 60m of climbing? 800m at 4km/h = 12 minutes. Add 6 minutes for 60m of climbing = 18 minutes. If you do this bit and it only takes 15 minutes, your group are walking faster than 4km/h and you can adjust timings for the next leg appropriately.
Pacing
If you are navigating in poor visibility (fog, rain, snowstorm, night-time etc) or finding a feature which is not completely obvious then pacing is the solution. However, for it to work you have to practice it when you don't need it - that is, when you know where you are and how far you are travelling. Here is a step-by-step guide to pacing.
| Step 1 |
Find two obvious features on a map which are a multiple of 100m apart and have a path or flat ground between them. |
| Step 2 |
Walk from one to the other, counting your double-paces (that is, only count the number of times your left foot hits the ground). |
| Step 3 |
Divide the number of double paces by the multiple of 100m. So, if you walked 198 double-paces in 300m, divide 198 by 3 to get 66 double-paces per 100m. |
| Step 4 |
Try it out on flat ground - count your paces to known points and see how close you get. |
| Step 5 |
Try it out on steep ground and adjust. One way to do this is to double count for fairly steep groud (1 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 3 - 3 etc), triple count for very steep ground etc. Practice is essential. |
Pace in multiples of 100m. If you need to pace, say, 600 metres, pick up 6 stones and discard one after each 100m count to help you keep track. Counting to 6 becomes quite tricky in the fog with a group of people depending on you to get them off the hill.
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