Learning to trust the one-inch map

For years I navigated by phone and treated the paper map as a backup I never opened. Then the phone died in the rain on a featureless moor and I realised I could not actually read the thing.

A winter of short walks with the phone deliberately switched off fixed that. Counting contour lines, timing legs by pace, taking bearings off a handrail feature until they became second nature.

The phone is still faster on a clear day. But I no longer feel the small knot of worry when the cloud comes down, because the map in my pocket is one I can actually use.