Written by W. Bastian published in the February 2022 edition of The Grapevine
 
At TREC Ireland and West Cork TREC, we use the Ordnance Survey Maps of Ireland, Discovery Series. The OSI maps have a scale of 1:50,000 (1cm on the map is 50,000cm or 500m in nature), but are normally blown up to a scale of 1:25,000 (1cm on the map is 25,000cm or 250m in nature).
 
West Cork is covered by the OSI maps Nr.84 – Nr.87, available in your local bookstore or tourism information centre.
 
On the bottom of the map is the “Legend”, which explains in detail what you see on the map: roads, rivers, woodlands, houses, and other landmarks, which help you identify your position.
 
Make yourself familiar with the map. Take it to a place in your area and find your position and your surroundings on the map.
 
Attend a map reading training. West Cork TREC offers training days – for more information on these training days check our Facebook or Instagram pages or our calendar.
 
Basic Rule 1: The top of the map is geographically North, the bottom is South, the right side is East and the left side is West. Obviously, it depends in which direction you hold the map in front of you, that the North on the map (⇒top of the map) is identical with the Magnetic North of in nature. You will need a compass to align the map with the Magnetic North.

The North on the map is called the “Grid North”. You can see parallel vertical and horizontal lines on the map. These are the “Gridlines”, which run vertically from North to South and horizontally from East to West.

These Gridlines are in numerical order and are important for the “Grid References”, which you will need when moving to a higher level in TREC.
 
Basic Rule 2: The gridlines make squares, where they intersect each other. Each square is 1km long and 1km wide, no matter what the scale of the map is. This helps you to estimate distances on your map.
 
To be continued with POR (Orienteering) Part 2