Navigation Skills for Walkers, Hikers and Ramblers

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- Walk & Hike Jargon

From Aréte to GPS Device to Water - every industry has its own and specific terms - or jargon.

If you know a term not covered here - tell the

Aréte - a very narrow rocky ridge

Beck - a stream

Bog Trotter - a walker who enjoys long, rough walks on the rough and boggy moorlands of the Peak District

Bottom - a broad level area lower down a valley

Boulder Slope - a mountain slope covered in large boulders

Brook - a stream

Buttress - a rock face flanked by gullies

Cairn - a small pile of stones marking the summit or route

Cirque - a large depression in a mountain side, usually with a steep back wall and often with a tarn in the bottom

Cloud - a hill

Clough - a moorland valley cut by a stream

Coire - a large depression in a mountain side, usually with a steep back wall and often with a tarn in the bottom

Col - a dip in the ridge between two mountain peaks

Contour (to) - to move across a fellside without losing height

Corrie - a large depression in a mountain side, usually with a steep back wall and often with a tarn in the bottom

Cove - a large depression in a mountain side, usually with a steep back wall and often with a tarn in the bottom

Crag - a cliff

Cwn - a large depression in a mountain side, usually with a steep back wall and often with a tarn in the bottom

Dale - a large valley

Dike - a stream

Edge - a narrow mountain ridge

Fell - a mountain or hill

Force - waterfall

Ghyll - a ravine with a stream

Gill - a ravine with a stream

Grain - a tributary stream

GPS - Global Positioning System

Grough - a channel cut into peat moorland by running water

Gully - a wide cleft down a cliff face

Gutter - a stream

Hag - an isolated 'pedestal' of peat topped with grass

Holme - an island

How - a small hill

Knott - a rocky hill

Moss - level, marshy area

Mere - a lake

Pass - a relatively easy route from one valley to another between two mountains

Pike - a sharp, well defined mountain peak

Pinnacle - a large rock face with a pointed summit

Pot-hole - cave

Rake - hillside path originally used for driving animals

Ridge - a long narrow line of mountain tops with several small summits and cols

Scramble - a climb up through rock requiring the use of both hands and feet but not rope

Scree Slope - slope covered with small pieces of rock

Shack-holes - hole in limestone where streams disappear

Sough - drainage tunnel cut in lead mines

Stones - small outcrop of gritstone

Swallets - hole in limestone where streams disappear

Swallow Holes - hole in limestone where streams disappear

Tarn - a small lake

Tor - a hill

Traverse - to move across a fellside without losing height

Water - a lake

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