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Beginners' skills
What skills do you need to be able to take part in your first event? Very few if you take your time and enjoy the countryside.
You need to be able to orientate the map so the map corresponds to the land around you. When you look at the map features on your right should be on the right of the map.
Basic compass skills will help with this process, but are not essential.
You also need some basic map reading skills. All orienteering maps use standard international colours and symbols. The purpose of an orienteering map is to show recognisable features and indicate how quickly you can move across the ground from control to control. The three key bits of information on a map that you need to look at before you start are:
- The magnetic north lines, normally, but not always,pointing to the top of the map;
- The scale. This will be either 1:10,000 (1cm to 100m) or 1:15,000 (1cm to 150 m); and
- The map legend. On a beginners course all you need to worry about are black symbols, as these represent man made features such as roads and paths. The different colours of the terrain give information about runability. Dark green for instance represents very thick woodland, whereas white is fast runable woodland. This link is to a summary of all the map legends used on orienteering maps.
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