Orienteering

Orienteering is an outdoor navigation sport where you use a map and compass to find a series of checkpoints, called controls, as quickly or as cleverly as you can. You choose your own route between them. It can be a flat-out race or a relaxed walk in the woods, and either way it turns the compass from a mystery into your new best friend.

Orienteering maps are very detailed and use colour in a particular way. White means open forest that's easy to move through. Green means thicker vegetation that slows you down, and the darker the green, the harder going it is. Yellow is open ground, blue is water, brown shows contour lines for hills and slopes and black marks paths, rocks and other features.

Controls are shown as circles on the map, and on the ground they're marked with an orange and white flag. At each one you record your visit, often with a punch or an electronic tag. Yes, you get a little rush every time.

Most orienteers use a baseplate compass, a see-through plastic compass with a rotating dial. The first skill is orienting the map, which means turning it so north on the map lines up with north on the compass. Then everything in front of you on the map is in front of you in real life.

Next comes taking a bearing: lining the compass up between where you are and where you're going, then following the direction of travel arrow. Experienced orienteers also use handrails, long features like paths or streams that guide you most of the way, and attack points, obvious features close to the control. Keeping your thumb on your position on the map, called thumbing, helps too.

The classic is a cross-country course, where you visit the controls in a set order. In a score event you find as many controls as you can in a set time, in any order you like. There's also sprint orienteering in parks and towns, night orienteering with head torches, mountain bike orienteering and even ski orienteering.

Very. After a short briefing from your Activity Leader, you're off to seek out the checkpoints at your own pace. Nobody has to run, and a pleasant walk through the forest counts. The satisfaction of hitting a control exactly where you planned is hard to beat, and the skills will make you the most useful person on any future hike. Wear shoes with a good grip, as forest ground can be rough.

You might also like Geo Treasure Hunt, Survival Skills and Escape & Evade.

See all Camp Wildfire activities