Practise on the bright days, not the grey ones

Navigation in poor visibility is not a dark art, but it is a perishable one. The skills that get you safely off a cloud-shrouded fell are the same ones you use on a sunny afternoon — bearings, pacing, matching the ground to the map — just quieter, slower and with fewer chances to check your answer against the view. That is why the best place to sharpen them is somewhere benign: a lowland path, a forest track, a loop between two stiles, on a day when you can see every mistake you make.

Book a cabin for a weekend, walk the same short circuit twice — once in clear weather, once deliberately at dusk or in drizzle — and you will learn more than a whole season of hoping. The aim is not to become an expedition navigator. It is to reach the point where mist is an inconvenience rather than a source of genuine worry.

Taking a bearing that actually works

Start with the map set: lay the compass flat on the paper and rotate map and compass together until the orienting lines inside the bezel run parallel with the map's north–south grid lines, with the red end of the needle pointing to grid north. Now the map matches the world around you.

To take a bearing, place the long edge of the compass baseplate along your line of travel, with the direction-of-travel arrow pointing towards your destination. Turn the bezel until the orienting lines line up with the grid lines on the map, keeping the N on the bezel at the top. Read the number at the index line — that is your grid bearing.

Grid north and magnetic north are not quite the same thing in the UK, and the gap drifts year on year. In most of the country it is only a degree or two, but it is worth knowing the current figure for your area and adding or subtracting it before you walk. On the hill, hold the compass flat at waist height and turn your whole body until the red needle sits neatly inside the orienting arrow — "red in the bed". The direction-of-travel arrow now points where you want to go. Pick a feature in that direction, walk to it, then repeat. Do not walk with the compass in your hand like a phone.

Pacing: your own private tape measure

Distances on the ground are the part most people skip, and they are the part that saves you. Count every second footfall as one pace; most adults cover around 1.5 metres per pace on flat, firm ground, so roughly 65 to 70 paces to the hundred metres.

Measure yourself properly. On a flat path, pace out 100 metres, count your paces, and do it three times. Then repeat on a rough uphill stretch to see how much shorter your stride becomes — often a third shorter, sometimes more in heather or bog.

Learn to count in blocks of 100, moving a pebble, a toggle or a finger with each block. Combine pacing with timing: roughly 12 minutes per kilometre on easy ground at a steady 4 km/h, plus about a minute for every 10 metres of climbing, plus extra for tussocks, mud and careful descent. Used together, pacing and timing give you a fix when the view gives you nothing.

Matching features when there is nothing to see

In mist, you navigate by shape and by line. Contours are your best friend: tight contours mean steep ground, widely spaced ones mean gentler slopes, and the V shapes tell you whether you are crossing a spur or a re-entrant. A re-entrant points uphill towards the higher ground; a spur points down and away.

• Handrails are linear features you can follow — a wall, a stream, a forest edge, a ridge line. Great for confidence, as long as you know when they end.
• Catching features are the things beyond your target that tell you you have gone too far: a road, a river, a fence corner.
• Aiming off is the clever trick. If your target sits on a linear feature, deliberately aim a little to one side. You then know which way to turn along the feature to find it, rather than guessing.

A short mist drill from the cabin door

Pick a route of two to three kilometres with four or five legs and clear features at each turn. Before you set off, write down the bearing, distance and expected time for each leg. Then walk it blind of the view: head down, compass out, counting paces, checking the ground underfoot against the contour shapes on the map.

At every leg end, stop. Ask yourself where you are, why you think that, and what you would expect to see if the cloud lifted. If the answer does not convince you, back up to the last certain point and start the leg again. Turning around is a skill, not a failure — and a short retreat in misty woods near a warm cabin is a far kinder teacher than a long one on a summit.

Small habits that steady the nerves

Keep the map in a clear case and on a lanyard so it cannot blow away, and keep the compass on a lanyard too. Carry a spare, plus a headtorch — mist and early dusk arrive together. Wear a watch, or use a phone in a waterproof pouch, and note your departure times as you go.

In a group, say your bearing and distance out loud before each leg, and have someone else confirm it. Two people reading the same compass is not bureaucracy; it catches tired eyes and misread numbers. Trust the needle even when your gut disagrees — in poor visibility, your gut is working from memory, and the compass is working from fact.