I read Erich von Däniken's Chariot of the God when I was 8 or 9 and eventually became incandescently angry when I eventually realised it was all made up...
On a more positive note I read Catch 22 when I was about 13 or so and I think that gave me some inkling that the world wasn't really going to make much sense!
The only two times I have made bad navigation mistakes in mountains were in the weeks after I started using my phone and a mapping app - the realisation that using my phone was making me worse at navigation was quite a shock at the time.
This is splitting hair, at the end his navigation skills (him + whatever tool he used) were NOK and could result in dangerous situations (been there so many times in the mountains, although it was mostly about "went too far in a bit wrong direction and don't want to backtrack that far, I am sure I will find a way to that already close point..." and 10 mins later scrambling on all 4 on some slippery wet rock with no room for error)
No - on both occasions it was the same scenario - descending from a peak in bad weather and picking the wrong ridge to descend - I was confident I "knew" which was the right ridge and with the app I use bearings for the right route are pretty difficult to distinguish - so completely my fault.
I'm now aware of that problem and haven't had that problem since but I was pretty shocked in retrospect that I confidently headed off in the wrong direction when the tool I was using was by any objective measure much better.
I agree with this:
"the key to navigating successfully is being able to read and understand a map and how it relates to your surroundings"
I walked past there the other day (on the Fife coastal path) and wondered what the shabby building was - I had assumed it was an abandoned light industrial unit.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
I took a photo of the statue years ago. A friend told me that he knew an old gent who has been in the commandos and was a model for one of the figures in the statue. But he had never seen the statue. So I was able to give him a copy of the photo to pass on to him.
Fancy having a statue of yourself and never bother going to see it!
The picture at the top shows the monument itself, but it's even more impressive in context as it's on top of a treeless moorland hill, surrounded by incredible views.
On a more positive note I read Catch 22 when I was about 13 or so and I think that gave me some inkling that the world wasn't really going to make much sense!
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