Navigate using contour lines
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Contour lines are really useful to anyone going out into the hills who uses a map to navigate as they’ll give you lots of information about the ground you’ll be walking over. Being able to visualise the terrain from the information on a map is one of the most useful skills to have before you set off for the hills.
With a little practice you’ll be able to imagine what the ground will be like and use that information to make an informed decision about your route choice.
Link to the history of contour lines which was mentioned in the video:
• A brief history of con...
This is the first video that's actually explained it your mixture of talking but also showing with the 3D maps and the actual contour line Maps and help so much can't wait to go through the rest of your stuff
OS used to sell 1-inch to 1-mile shaded relief tourist maps, which fascinated me as a child and interested me in maps and navigation.
Great job! I like your rope contour lines, laminated heights, ball analogy, etc. It was all compact enough to fit in a pack, light enough to carry into the field for a quick lesson, and intuitive enough with familiar items for students to easily grasp.
Your comment at 6.52 re the rock face is a point I bring up in every class, sudden changes in height of the land between contour lines are not shown so don't rely totally on the contour lines to determine a safe course.
Just found your channel and burned through 5 videos in a row. Excellent content and excellent delivery. Greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work. Quality.
Thanks again for the video. I always appreciate the info and the waffle's. Keep 'em both coming.
I love the way you present things
Me too!!!🎉
Extremely useful to see the ropes on the ground to visual the contour map lines. Thank you!
Sir,
Thank you for this wonderful video. I found it informative and pedagogical. Did not know about the contourline-numbers being 90 degrees to the fall-line.
This was the second video about contourlines, both very good.
Could one make a request for more videos about this subject please??
I find contourlines a very important subject yet difficult to read and employ.
I don't mean a video like a circle representing hilltop, hourglass shape a saddle, hashmark inside a cirkle a depression, closer lines steeper etc.
More like reading and interpreting "on a higher level" .
Love your videos and channel. Looking forward future videos.
Best wishes.
I have to re-watch this a few times but I am learning more from you than I ever did before. Thank you sir.
I use them to plan our route to new areas while prospecting in the Mojave. They are quite necessary to avoid hiking up dead end canyon carrying all of our gear and having to back track. Also while canoeing in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota planning portages.
Thank you for great videos .
Always wondered why I meet a steep hill Contour lines very important
Thanks Wayne very well explained
Very good video well explained
Very clearly explained Wayne. Several points new to me.
Thanks - ! 😊
Great video. Very informative, well demonstrated and great presentation.😊
Thanks for taking the time to do all these videos. Always useful to have another take on it and usually there is extra data that firms up existing knowledge 😊
I love your videos. Your style is so engaging!
Excellent explanation! 👏👏
Well you just changed my look at a map, well done sir!
Great video as always.
What app or software did you use to get the 3d contour maps?
Excellent video! When I got my “higher education” in map reading, so to speak, in the US army back in 1987 our instructors’ teaching styles were very different LOL. I had to think a bit as to what a “reentrant” was, it’s referred to as a “draw” here. And I never knew that contour numbers were put at right angles to the slope, although after looking at a couple maps it doesn’t appear to be very useful due to how far apart they are. The fall line would switchback all over the place, not make a smooth curve like yours. Maybe USGS topo maps don’t do that?
Great video! Can you somehow count the contour lines you are crossing and adjust your pacing estimate?
Great videos 👍 much appreciated
fantastic video as usual, although I would suggest that Newlyn is in the south west, not south east.
Agreed!
Oh yeah! - oops. 😊
Thank you Wayne, another great video
Glad you enjoyed it
Brilliant video!!
Great video, thanks. Would love to have an app that created the 3D look from the contours.
While knowing the datum used may be of interest, in the field it doesn't matter so much since the relative heights remain constant whatever the reference point.
Also give the natural features all priority over the man made. Man-made can be added or deleted. Years ago, on a nav exercise we were dropped in pairs along a road after being dumped out of the back of a covered truck. Oriented the map and wondered why the telegraph wires were on the "wrong side" of the road. Then noticed the poles looked "fresh" and further inspection showed the depressions on the other side of the road from where the older ones had been removed. Made it back in time and learned a few pairs had used the wires to orient and ended up 180 degrees wrong for some time before realising their mistake.
Match the terrain to the map, not the map to the terrain...Of course, the instructors had done this deliberately just to drive home this lesson.
Good video and interesting and informative. Keep 'em coming!
Another great and informative video. Thank you.
Great video as always!
8:42 🇦🇺🙋♂️👍😀 question....I recently saw a book titled "finding your way without map or compass by Harold Gatty" which leaves me with questions mainly how? The book is out of stock atm, keen to buy it though......just found the book here on RUclips as an audio book. Totally appreciate your informative videos
Thank you very informative.
Great video
Thanks
I am wondering: Is the term "isopleth' also used in maps? It is used for 'lines of equal values' in Nomography.
Btw. great content, I am so happy I stumbled on your channel
I suppose you "could use "isopleth" instead on "contour line", but I have never heard anyone using it that way.
Thanks.
Great tks
Im afraid you don't read the remarks by older videos because ive put down some questions by a number of them. Ill try it over here anyhow. Where i live the highest contour in the total country is that of the sidewalk😅 so there is nowhere to practice.
I want to go to Scotland next februari and i really want to practice this before going to the cold, dark, snowy, rainy, foggy but BEAUTIFUL mountains and hills overthere . Is there anything you can advise me to do to practice?
I do read all comments, but don’t have the time to answer the vast majority of them - on average I get around 200 questions by email and YT comments per day. Over 1,000 per week. I always answer questions from channel members.
You say you’re going walking Scotland in February, but don’t have any experience of this type of walking and navigating. The only advice I can give, as it’s a very generic question, is to be prepared for very short days, bad weather (low cloud, heavy snow/rain, etc), so just start practicing night navigation, relocation skills, compass work, etc. and make sure you have the right good quality equipment and clothing.
In every part of Scotland there are local, fully qualified, mountain guides who will take you out and show you the area safely, I would strongly suggest that if you’re not confident in your nav skills and you want to go up into the higher areas, that you book a local guide.
It may be a better idea to go in the summer rather than in the winter.
Good video thank you
Interesting that a single datum (at Newlyn Harbour) is used for Great Britain. How is the curvature of the Earth factored into contours and more generally altitude? The curvature across Britain will not be exactly spheroidal.
Hi John here is the OS's take on this very subject (53 pages of it).
www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/documents/resources/guide-coordinate-systems-great-britain.pdf
Have a look at the orthometric height section about half way down the paper
@@TheMapReadingCompany thank you. That OS publication is fascinating! It is full of interesting information eg islands have their separate height datums. It is relatively easy to understand.
The New River, when first built, roughly followed the 100 ft contour. It's neither new - over 400 years old, nor a natural river. The main source was the River Lee, just West of Hertford and was built to supply drinking water to London - it still supplies 10% of that. It has a meandering 25 mile route and falls just 14ft throughout its entire length - still a marvellous feat of engineering.
@TheMapReadingCompany at around 50 seconds, you 'tilt' the map to show in 3D, was that acheived by a program?
No I only have one program to make videos DaVinci Resolve. I don't have any other programs to make videos. That effect was done in Photoshop
Thanks for the replies
Interestingly, you mentioned the 3D tilting. In the early 2000s, I bought some costly 3D software from Canada that allowed you to overlay digitised maps available from OS on CD format. When I saw that clip, I did wonder if it was the same software. The software was from Fugawi (I kid you not!). According to their website, it was discontinued in 2011, and the company ceased operation in 2019.
I was an earlier adopter of hand-held GPS devices and could use the software to plan routes on the PC and upload the waypoints on the GPS. Conversely, I could upload the recorded track after the walk and plot my course against my planned route.
It all seemed really hi-tech at the time. It wasn't long before the GPS device was left in the rucksack (as a backup emergency device), and navigating the traditional way with the old map and compass!
When I walked the Cape Wrath trail some people had a guidebook that said follow the contour lines at a certain height (400 meters I think it was). I wondered how do you know it's 400 meters? Do you measure somehow or just look at the land and the curves sort of tell you that you are roughly at 400 meters?
You would need a map or a barometer
👍👍
Ta mister. 👍
OMG! A video without any interesting informative waffle! What happened?? Still a cracking vid and thank you.
👍
What is a contour ...an iso...?....not therm , bar or bath ....I just don't know!
Contour lines turn your map into a 3D image.
Oh the irony, Newlyn is on the southwest coast, not southeast. 😂
😂
Elevation rather than altitude
Reentrance is ridiculous. It is a draw. Please use a correct terminology.😮
I am curious to know if Southern Ireland is any different than navigating in England.
You often mention the difference in other countries.
Allow .me to Waffle
I wish I had teachers like you earlier in life,,,,,,I might have actually learned something