Re-Time and Justify: A Route Plan That Fails on Contact
A student submits a route plan for a two-day bushwalk in the Mount Lofty Ranges. Day 1 is 14 km with 1100 m of ascent and 600 m of descent. He has allowed 3.5 hours at a flat 4 km/h, scheduled camp for 3:00 pm after an 8:30 am start, with 1 hour of breaks and no ascent allowance. The route crosses a creek the map marks as intermittent. The group includes a student with asthma, listed under 'medical notes' with no further detail. There is no alternative route, no bail-out point, no water source marked, and no check of rainfall in the preceding week. Sunset is 5:25 pm. The supervising teacher returns the plan with two words: 'Re-time and justify.'
1. Re-time Day 1 using a defensible method and state the resulting margin. Show the arithmetic and explain what the margin actually means.
Read the worked answer
Naismith-style estimate with a terrain factor
- Flat distance time: 14 km ÷ 4 km/h = 3.5 h
- Ascent allowance: 1 h per 600 m of ascent (or 1 min per 10 m) → 1100 m ÷ 600 = 1.83 h
- Terrain factor for steep, partly untracked ground: multiply moving time by about 1.15 → (3.5 + 1.83) × 1.15 ≈ 6.1 h moving
- Breaks: 1.0 h
- Contingency at 15–20% of moving time: 1.0 h
- Total ≈ 8.1 h → start 8:30 am, arrive about 4:40 pm
What the margin means
- Against sunset at 5:25 pm, there is under an hour of daylight left on arrival - and camp must be established, water collected, and the stove run before dark. That is not a margin; it is a schedule with no room for error.
- The original 3:00 pm arrival depended on a flat-rate calculation that ignores 1100 m of ascent. The arithmetic was not wrong; the method was.
- The margin should be tested against single failures, not averages: a 45-minute delay at the creek or an asthma-paced section alone destroys it. A workable plan carries enough margin to absorb one realistic failure and still camp in daylight, or it contains a decision point that prevents the failure from compounding.
What the revised plan needs as a result: a turn-around or alternate-camp decision point (for example, at the 8 km mark, 1:30 pm), and a shorter Day 1 or an earlier start.
2. Beyond the timing, what is missing from this plan that a folio marker would expect, and why does each omission matter operationally rather than just as paperwork?
Read the worked answer
Missing elements and their operational consequence
| Omission | Why it matters in the field |
|---|---|
| Bail-out points with grid references and exit times | Turns 'should we keep going?' from a debate into a decision with a location and a deadline. Without one, the group only turns back after the problem is obvious. |
| Alternative campsite | The planned camp is a single point of failure. If the group is late, the alternative must already exist and be known. |
| Water sources and quantities | Unmarked water means the plan cannot state how much to carry, so load and pace estimates are guesses. |
| Creek contingency | An intermittent creek is a hazard that depends on the preceding 48 hours of rainfall. The plan needs a rainfall check, a depth threshold for not crossing, and an alternative crossing or a decision to retreat. |
| Asthma action plan | See the next task - a diagnosis is not a plan. |
| Emergency and communication plan | Phone coverage map, PLB, who holds it, who is notified at home, and the check-in schedule. |
| Weather go/no-go threshold | Deciding in advance what wind or rainfall would cancel or shorten the day removes the decision from the moment of maximum pressure. |
| Group roles | Navigation, tail, first aid, timekeeping - role clarity is what holds a tired group together. |
Why this is not just paperwork: every one of these converts an improvised decision under fatigue, cold, or dark into a pre-made one. A marker is looking for evidence that the student has done that conversion, because it is the transferable part of journey planning.
3. The asthma is recorded as a 'medical note' with no action attached. What should the plan say instead, and what does that change about the journey itself?
Read the worked answer
What 'medical note: asthma' fails to provide - it records a fact. A plan needs a response.
What the plan should state
- Medication and custody: reliever carried by the student and a second reliever carried by a named other person; spacer included.
- Known triggers for this student: cold air, uphill sustained effort, smoke, pollen, or a recent viral illness - whichever apply.
- Early warning signs agreed with the student, so the group acts on signs rather than waiting for an attack.
- Action protocol: stop, sit upright, calm breathing, reliever as prescribed, reassess in 10 minutes, and the rule that no improvement means descending and exiting rather than continuing.
- Decision authority: who makes the call to turn around, named in advance so it is not negotiated mid-episode.
- Terrain and pace constraints implied by the above.
What this changes about the journey
- The route may change: an earlier start to avoid cold morning air, a campsite before rather than after the main climb, a shorter Day 1, and a bail-out that runs downhill toward access.
- The pace allowance must be built into the timing, not bolted on afterwards - which feeds directly back into the re-timed Day 1.
- The group gains a shared understanding of what to do, which reduces the delay between symptoms and response.
The shift the folio is looking for: from describing the participant to designing the journey around the participant. That is the difference between a medical note and an inclusion plan.