The Hole in the Wall Walking Group

Emergency 999 calls when walking

Walkers who visit areas with bad mobile phone access can now register with a new service that allows 999 calls to be made via a text message.

Heather Morning, safety adviser with the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, is urging walkers and climbers to register for this service in advance and not to wait for an emergency. She says: “If you cannot make voice calls, you can now contact the 999 emergency services by SMS text from your mobile phone.
“This is going to be particularly useful for those needing 999 assistance in the hills when mobile reception is poor and there is not enough signal to make a call.”

The emergency SMS service was established originally for deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech-impaired people. It allows users to contact the UK 999 services by sending an SMS text message.
Mountain Rescue Services in the UK are usually coordinated by the police.

For more information and to register for the emergency SMS service, visit www.emergencysms.org.uk

About Derbyshire and the Peak District

Access

  • The current Peak District closures list  This relates to Access Land.  Landowners are entitled to close areas for a few weeks a year (presumably for such as grouse/stag hunting).  This includes several areas we frequent so it’s worth checking when planning any moorland walks.
  • Derbyshire Path closure register lists closures of footpaths with maps and alternative routes. Unfortunately it’s not easy to navigate, you need to know what district (from this list Amber Valley Borough, Bolsover District, Derbyshire Dales District, Erewash Borough, High Peak Borough, North-East Derbyshire District, South Derbyshire District).  An overall map would be better.
  • Blocked paths (Derbyshire) Past experience of reporting problems with Derbyshire footpaths has been very good, the issue addressed within a few days.
  • Blocked paths (Sheffield) Will you be surprised to hear that in contrast with Derbyshire, Sheffield’s handling of these issues is poor? It’s harder to find the correct form and don’t expect a useful response.

General walk related information

  • Grough  UK wide coverage of mountain & walking news
  • Blocked paths The Ramblers association has a GB-wide blocked path reporting mechanism and an app called PathWatch.  That may now be members-only.  An interesting feature of PathWatch is the ability to zoom in to 1:25k os mapping.

Mapping

The ideal walkers maps are the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale with their high levels of detail like field boundaries.  It’s not difficult to find 1:50k OS maps online it’s usually necessary to pay for access to 1:25k.  Two recommended commercial OS mapping options are the OS online mapping service and my preferred option Mapyx Quo.

OS online maps have the advantage that they are subject to numerous daily updates.  The app works on Mobile phones (Android/Apple) and Desktop. As Mobile Phone coverage can be poor or none in some locations it’s best to preload the maps for the area you are to visit in advance (if using a WiFi connection, that also has the benefit of not using your expensive mobile phone data allocation). OS mapping costs £24 p.a. You can also buy one-month’s access for £3.

My preferred product is Mapyx Quo (sign-up to their mailing list, 2 or 3 times a year they offer it at a very substantial discount).  Quo provides a lifetime license.  The whole UK map is downloaded to your PC at time of purchase. That means the underlying OS maps are never updated (unless you pay again) but for rural walks in particular, that’s not a problem.  The reason I use Quo is that it is very feature rich, it provides many features I’ve not found in any other mapping product.  The flip-side of that coin is that there are so many options and capabilities that it can be confusing.  Full GB coverage at 1:25k has a list price of £250 but sale price maybe £180.  You can download the app with some sample maps FOC.

And a free one!

Use maps.bing.com At the top right is a button to choose map type select OS and you’ll see the Ordnance Survey map option.  As you zoom in it will change from a road map to OS 1:50k maps  (roughly 1 inch to the mile), keep zooming and you get to 1:25k maps (roughly 2.5 miles to the inch).  OK if all you need is a map with no capabilities like route planning or track recording.

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