Navigation on Rudd Hill

I got out last Sunday with Mark for some navigation practice; he's shaping up for his Winter Mountain Leader Assessment in March and wanted to take the opportunity for a couple of hours work with map and compass.
As it happened conditions were pretty much perfect. There was a damp hill fog across the moors above Sheffield. We took the Ringinglow Road out past Lady Canning Plantation and parked up near Burbage Moor. The featureless moorland on either side of the road here offers few landmarks; it's a gently undulating blanket of peat covered in heather, moss and rushes. Yellow Nardus grass on the merely damp ground alternates with soft green pools of sphagnum moss in the bogs. The heather grows deep and makes walking difficult, a mild version of the difficulties of walking in deep snow Mark will have on his assessment on the Cairngorms.

We chose a few tiny pond features around Rudd Hill and set off to find them. The method used is to take a bearing using the compass from your known position to your destination, then keep track of your paces to know how far you've walked. On difficult walking terrain its hard to keep on your bearing, and hard to be accurate for the number of paces taken to walk each 100metres; it's even harder when the hill fog means you can't see more than 40 metres around. The challenge is to walk some hundreds of metres to find the correct pond in the midst of the moor. He hit every point, bang on.
We spent two hours happily walking about; Mark concentrating and doing the navigating, and me just having a nice wander. Strangely, I enjoy the intimate moorland landscape under these conditions. In the absence of wider views you're left with a close micro landscape and are much more aware of what's at your feet.