Knowing where you are on a map is an essential part of map and compass skills and is not something separate. You should always know where or whereabouts you are on the map. You have to keep taking bearings and check your position on the map before you get into poor conditions. Once in poor conditions you can use other skills of navigation. I will not go into them here, but a good navigation course will teach you them. How do you thing we used to manage before GPS devices were available? Many of us, very successfully , even in real whiteouts ( not heavy snow storms).
Knowing where you are on a map in poor conditions without GPS will always be an estimation.
A GPS will tell you where you are on the map.
The one thing that makes me anxious in thick clag is not being able to walk in the right direction, it is being able to pinpoint exactly where I am on a map, and estimating how far I am going in a given time interval. Technology such as GPS solves that problem, if it is working properly when I want to use it.
Absolutely. Yup, in poor conditions GPS is reassuring. It is accurate, it will tell you exactly where you are, and it will when combined with a compass (and map as required) give you confidence in heading in the right direction. In winter you can use it to steer clear of cornice in poor conditions etc.
I was hoping I could use the OS maps app on my phone to do the same thing, which has the additional nice benefit of locating my position over an OS map, but I need to get to grips with storing OS maps offline for that to work. If I try and use the app in its default mode of using online OS mapping, it frequently can't access the map, even in SE England, so it is not going to work if I wanted to use it to see if I have found the summit of Beinn Bhreac (Atholl).
I’ve not used mobile phone apps for navigation. Been using a Satmap Active 10 for over ten years now. If it eventually lets me down I’ll buy another GPS unit.