A Good Way to Lose Subscribers...

A Good Way to Lose Subscribers...
Thu January 22, 2004 08:44 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A hiking magazine apologized on Thursday after it published a route plan that would have sent walkers striding into thin air off the north face of Britain's largest mountain, Ben Nevis.

The magazine, Trail, missed out a vital bearing needed to guide climbers off the summit of the Scottish mountain in bad weather.

Anyone who had followed the magazine's directions would have plunged down a sheer cliff into nearby Gardyloo Gully.

Editor Guy Procter, himself a keen hillwalker, said that Trail published 200 routes every year and had never made a similar mistake before.

"I should have picked it up at the final proofreading stage, but unfortunately it slipped through," he told Reuters. The error was spotted by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, which published a warning about the "dangerous bearing" on their Web Site.

Procter said he was confident his readers always carried maps while hill-walking and would therefore immediately notice the error.

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quite amusing (morbidly) that a "proof reading error" can potentially send someone flying off a cliff. on this topo-related theme, I remembered that when we used to train students in basic topo skills before an expedition, we asked the zoology honours class where is "north", a certain student replied that north is in front!!!?? needless to say, we nearly fainted. I guess we were glad that we found that out before we sent them out into the field.

in Singapore, quite a few "lost in forest" cases happened to supposedly experienced groups from adventure clubs. one such group wound up walking in circles in the Catchment Area and ended up eating rattan seeds. there was one case in Mt Ophir when some idiots went off trail, at night without a compass. incidents happen when foolhardy and overconfident people decide that they can navigate without map and compass.