The 5 D’s of Navigation

If you ever do some form of navigation training, or speak to any nav nerds (not a derogatory term, I fully count myself a part of this group) you will probably have heard someone mention “The 5 D’s”.

Well what are they? And what’s the point of them?

Basically, they’re the things you should be thinking about when you set about trying to get from point A to point B, i.e. when you’re doing any kind of navigation. 

Might sound a little daunting but really most of them are fairly obvious and what you are probably doing whenever you leave the house, or even get up from your chair to make a cup of tea. 

So, lets see what they are. 

Destination - “Where do I want to go?” - Always a good one to start with.

Direction - “Which way should I be walking?” - Again, pretty straight forward. When you’re starting out on your navigational journey don’t worry too much about taking bearings, just think, should I be heading North/South/East/West?

Distance - “How far am I going?” - Always nice to know, and helpful for the point below.

Duration - “How long should it take to get there” - This is where we start to get a little more technical. 

Lets introduce Naismith’s Rule: on average people walk at 4km an hour, (15 minutes per kilometre), add 1 minute for every contour you plan on climbing and you should get a fair estimate of how long you should take to get to your Destination. I.e. if you are going 2km and climbing 100m (10 contours) it should take 2x15+10 = 40 minutes. 

This estimate should help tell you if you’ve gone too far/not far enough etc. (if it should have taken a minute to walk to your kitchen for that cup of tea and you’ve been going a half hour you’ve probably gone wrong somewhere).

Description - “What should I see on the way there/when I get there?” - I find this is often the most overlooked, and yet is really one of the most useful. 

Think about everything you can see on the map. Will you go uphill or down? Along a road/path? Does the path have any distinctive bends? Will you walk next to a river? Along a loch? Through a forest? Across a field? There are countless things you could use.

Then, tell yourself the story of how your walk should go. 

For instance, “I will walk from my desk to my office door, take a left along the corridor, I will pass a doorway on my right, then turn left again into the living room, there will be a sofa on my left and a TV on my right, I will turn right, cross the living room then enter the kitchen and put the kettle on”

Now, as I go to make myself a cup of tea, I don’t have to walk along staring at a map of my flat, I can simply tick off these steps in my head. If I find myself climbing out of a window at any point I’ll know I’ve gone wrong and can get the map out to reassess. 

This is nice for two reasons:

1. I get to actually look at what's around me (we generally go hiking to enjoy the view) 

2. I can talk to my friends/clients/whoever I happen to be hiking with. 

So, as you’re about to start your next hike into the hills, just think Destination, Direction, Distance, Duration, Description. 

Or, where am I going? What way is it? How far is it? How long should that take? And what should I see along the way?