Using your phone in the mountains

Smartphones are becoming increasingly used as a tool for navigation in the mountains. In 2022, Mountaineering Scotland and the mountain safety group surveyed that 87% of people used a smartphone or GPS for navigation at some point. Of those people, 40% had experienced a situation where it had stopped working in some way.

Top tips for using a mobile phone safely in the hills

Charge

This may sounds obvious but make sure you’re phone is fully charged before setting out, and make sure you have enough battery for the entire duration you are out. Take a power bank if you are going for longer periods.

Protect

Keep your phone protected from the elements, put it in a waterproof case. Keeping you phone closer to your body and warm can help improve its battery life. If you are storing your phone in a waterproof case make sure the functionality is still possible through the case.

Download

Download all the maps and information you might need before heading on the hills. Service can often be much worse in the mountains, but also uses a lot of battery power to download extra maps. Include a larger area than you might expect therefore making sure you have space for a plan B if needed. Online maps can come in all shapes and sizes, when you download them, make sure they’re suitable for the area you are going to (topographic maps are usually the most helpful in the mountains), and also make sure you can interoperate them.

Extend

By putting your phone onto flight mode, you will extend your battery life significantly, navigational features of your phone will still work if they are downloaded.

Take a back up

No system is full proof, have a separate system to work from if one fails, if this is taking a map and compass or a separate GPS system, this will help you avoid any sticky situations. Remember that your phone is also the most likely way to be able to call for help. Keeping a simple backup phone in your first aid kit, with a battery that will last for six months could be a lifesaver.

Like any piece of kit you have it's important to check its limitations and know what to do when you reach those limits.

With mobile navigation increasingly being seen by walkers as a replacement for the traditional map and compass, are other mountain rescue teams concerned? After a mountain rescue team warns against relying on mobile phones for navigation, we asked three mountain rescue team leaders around the country to share their very different opinions.

“Navigating with a mobile is a big no-no”

Willie Anderson, Team Leader, Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team

It isn’t a huge issue here, but we certainly have had folk who have been navigating with an electronic compass on their smartphone and then the battery has died - we’ve had that a few times. There have also been a few incidences of people getting lost due to using apps for navigation. In the last two years there have been perhaps four incidents like that. In one case, two guys had to spend all night out in winter because they had no map or compass and their smartphone ran out battery. The cold reduces the life of those batteries, so in winter it’s a particular issue as well as being more dangerous.

We’ve used the SARLOC software [which allows people to be located on the hill through an exchange of text messages] and that can help us find people so there are uses there. When it comes right down to it, though, navigating with a mobile is a no-no - you just can’t replace a map and compass.

“The phone is a double-edged sword”

Andy Nelson, Team Leader, Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team

Interestingly, there have been more incidences where we’ve been able to fix situations using mobile mapping technology than we’ve had problems. In June for example we had a spate of callouts - seven in one week - and three of those were people who had no map and compass with them in misty conditions. On one of those occasions I was on the phone to a father and son - the son had a smartphone and I was able to advise him to download a mapping application with a compass in it. From that, we managed to describe how to do a slope aspect and that narrowed their location down to two slopes in a kilometre-wide area. We sent the team in those two directions and found them. The phone is a double-edged sword, and on that occasion it worked really well.

The other way in which the navigation properties of smartphones can help mountain rescue teams is through an app called SARLOC. With SARLOC, you can text somebody a message and when they text you back SARLOC locates them. That has been very useful to us.

I don’t know of any particular issues with batteries running out, but we have had issues with people not knowing how to set their GPS so that it reads OS GB rather than lat-long. If you are intending to use a phone to navigate then the key thing is to have system that enhances the life of that technology. If it’s a mobile phone then get one of those sleeves that can give the phone another full charge - if it’s a GPS then carry spare batteries. If you’re hanging your hat on one device then you need another way of backing it up.

“I consider this technology to be of benefit to rescuers”

Chris Higgins, Team Leader, Keswick Mountain Rescue Team

The use of GPS phones has not presented a problem to us in Keswick MRT. If a mobile phone gives a lost person a grid reference or lat/ long that they can pass to a mountain rescue team then it is much quicker to find them than to have to do a ‘blanket search’ of an area. As such, I consider this technology to be of benefit to rescuers and to members of the public on the fells.

Mobile phone use in the mountains obviously also has the potential to raise the alarm much quicker than twenty years ago and undoubtedly allows for help to be dispatched sooner with the resultant benefits to casualties. Mobile phones used in this way have saved lives.”