For years, decades actually, I religiously carried a map with me on just about every outing unless it was particularly short. An older GPSr that I had didn't have built in maps and wasn't much good for anything except getting me back in a white-out. Then I got one with touch screen and built-in maps and wow, what a difference. It's been about four years now since I last carried a printed map with me on an outing. I use TOPO! to study routes ahead of time, mark them, and then upload them to the GPSr, sometimes up to several dozen for a long road trip. I no longer get lost, climb the wrong summit or various other mishaps. I can use the GPSr to find alternate trails, roads and cross-country routes, even at night. Other Scout leaders I work with don't buy into my methodology, telling me it's unsafe to trust electronics (a spare pare of batteries is so far all the insurance I've needed), but maps are hardly foolproof, especially if you find your inkjet-printed map unexpectedly wet and a crumple of colored ink all washed out and unreadable. Do others have strong feelings about this one way or another? Am I the only one that thinks carrying a map is going the way of using a sextant or film photography?

I've been carrying both around since 2004. At first the maps were expensive and you didn't get them for all places but nowadays open maps of any kind tend to be more reliable than maps, especially if there haven't been no new map editions in recent years. On the other hand you don't get a good overview with your GPSr so a map comes handy to identify all those peaks you see around you.

It might sound strange with European trail systems but I do get lost once or twice each trip and it definitely helps to have a GPSSr around. And if its just to identify the correct descent gully from above.

Most modern inkjets use waterproof ink. But that doesn't keep the paper from disintegrating. I've carried a compass, maps, GPSr and spare Li batteries since 2003.

Bob,
You raise an interesting question. FWIW, I use Contact brand covering (clear version) to cover both ink and laser jet printing of maps. Covering one side will suffice, but if you are on a particularly long, wet or abrasive trip/climb, covering both sides (map face and back) will greatly ensure a map that is almost waterproof and and pretty much tear proof. Plus the map can be reused/re-gifted many times.
http://www.amazon.com/Con-Tact-Covering ... B00D8GBO2G

The contact covering processes takes only a couple of minutes at most and can be done the night before the trip.

Also (and FWIW) I bring both GPS and "paper" when out in the sticks. Having been seriously lost a couple times in my life, I don't trust just one navigation medium. As you may know, in the terror of being truly lost, you lose trust in yourself. I never want to return to THAT place. Paper and GPS back each other up. Or, as the USN SEALs say: Two is one and one is none.

(redundant capability, not redundant gear)

Good luck out there Bob and thanks for all you do.
JM

I've never brought a dedicated GPS product, cell phone, or tablet into the backcountry but have brought a Kindle for reading. As an old guy rambling off trail in the Sierra for decades am very skilled using USGS topographic maps so an electronic version does not add much function. And maps being paper have trivial weight and likewise space.

The one reason I might bring a GPS unit along would be to record a route. For instance a couple years or so ago on my thread on the mis-marked on topo Shepherd Pass trail, you were able to display your GPS recorded route up the lower switchbacks that verified my tedious work overlaying the satellite image on a topo was reasonably accurate. Your method of correcting trails on a map is obviously superior. As for GPS unit or map, I don't care. But what has long bothered me is that significant numbers of Sierra visitors using paper maps have tended to stuff them in their packs then rarely take them out.

Out on trails upon encountering groups common questions are about locations and distances of whatever. The first thing I do is ask a person to take out their map so I can show them. Not a few have to dig deep into their pack and to some it obviously all looks Greek and confusing. What are all those lines? How far is a mile? Which way do I turn it for viewing? Thus they depend on staying on trails that can be a dangerous. Last month I backpacked into the Sabrina Basin during an Inyo SAR rescue. A woman that had been going on group trips for years always followed others. On a dayhike she turned around early near Dingleberry Lake in order to return to their camp at the Emerald Lakes a short distance along the trail. Instead she got off on a use path that followed the creek below Dingleberry dropping into the steep bedrock canyon below. Without map skills she became confused and lost. For someone like that a GPS unit would be much more valuable than a map because it can show where she had been since leaving her camp versus her current position. So regardless of how a map is displayed, the more serious issue is more backcountry visitors ought to have map skills though for some the newer technology has advantages.

David
http://www.davidsenesac.com/2015_Trip_C ... les-0.html

If you're printing your maps on ordinary 8x10 or A4 paper, you can stick them in a large (gallon size) Zip-Loc bag and they'll be completely waterproof.

I own a GPS unit but I never carry it. I get really frustrated trying to see anything on a two-inch "map" that doesn't work in direct sunlight. If I'm on a trail, the fastest way to get where I'm going is usually to follow the trail, so the GPS doesn't help much. If I'm off-trail, I need a detailed map that shows me the obstacles I need to navigate around, not just the straightest line. Also, the places where I'm likely to want a GPS are mostly the places that a GPS doesn't work as well : deep woods, dark valleys, cold winters, heavy downpours. So far I haven't been willing to put in the effort to learn when it's reliable and when it's not.

For emergencies I do carry my phone, which has a GPS receiver. You can read off your coordinates by entering debug mode.

Jesus Malverde wrote:Bob,
You raise an interesting question. FWIW, I use Contact brand covering (clear version) to cover both ink and laser jet printing of maps. Covering one side will suffice, but if you are on a particularly long, wet or abrasive trip/climb, covering both sides (map face and back) will greatly ensure a map that is almost waterproof and and pretty much tear proof. Plus the map can be reused/re-gifted many times.
http://www.amazon.com/Con-Tact-Covering ... B00D8GBO2G

The contact covering processes takes only a couple of minutes at most and can be done the night before the trip.

This seems (to me) like buying a more expensive lens to keep my film camera relevant. Really, I want to get away from printed maps, not spend more time with them. While it doesn't have the "big picture" view you get from a fold out map, the GPSr maps seem nearly as good in detail as the topos, plus they have all sorts of useful info like old roads/trails, feature names (it's easy enough to figure out what peak that is over there, and I'll know exactly how far it is, too). A month ago I would have said they're pretty fool-proof for knowing where you are, but this bogus GPS track had me thinking I was heading up the wrong drainage until it corrected itself after about 15min. Still, better than the hours I've been lost on occasion when I failed to read a map correctly. It seems backwards that we spend hours teaching Scouts how to orient a map, adjusted for declination (and omg, why do we still teach UTM coordinates?) and other stuff when their ass is more likely to be saved by knowing how to read a GPSr pointing them back to camp? I'd be the first to agree that knowing how to read a topo maps is highly valuable, so I'm not arguing that, in fact much of the GPSr value is lost if you can't read topo lines.

nartreb, I suspect you have an older model GPSr. My older one had trouble in the woods, but the newer one works almost everywhere with the exception of a narrow canyon or slot. And the color screen is bright enough to read in sunlight (and adjustable for night use, too). And to be fair, neither the GPSr nor printed 7.5' topo maps have enough detail to really distinguish class 2 from class 3 or harder in most cases. You can infer cliffs from a map, but most such areas really need a visual inspection to see if there is a way through. Btw, not having enough detail was one of the arguments against digital cameras initially - in time I suspect that the digital details of maps will far exceed their printed counterpart.

I used to have hundreds of maps I'd printed out from TOPO! (going through a LOT of ink cartridges), saved and categorized by area, reused from time to time, but mostly just a nostalgic collection taking up space on the bookshelf.

I have a 6 year old DeLorme GPS that sits in my sock drawer. It's heavy. I've never trusted it. And I don't really like the DeLorme maps. When I go out, I carry a map, compass, and my Garmin Forerunner 305. I navigate by map and compass and use the Garmin for elevation. Only once have I had to use the Garmin to backtrack and that was after an injury finding my way back, cross country, to the Birch Lake Trailhead.

in time I suspect that the digital details of maps will far exceed their printed counterpart.

This is not like film vs digital cameras. That was a question of whether you could fabricate tiny enough sensors (first at all, then, at a reasonable price) to compete with existing chemical processes for placing dye molecules on celluloid. The best old-fashioned film is *still* impossible to beat, especially in larger formats, but digital sensors are now good enough, and cheap enough, that few are willing to go to the trouble and expense of dealing with film any more.

If you can deal with a bit of panning and zooming (I'd rather not), even a low-res display can display all the details of the topo map. The real problem is that the topo maps you can find for loading onto GPS are generally lacking in detail and/or rife with inaccuracies. I remember a two-hour delay in winter because our leader used a GPS and insisted the trail branched "right around here somewhere", when in fact the trail we were looking for was a mile away. The only maps available for GPS were twenty years out of date and also had the trail drawn incorrectly. As it happens, in that area there are good printed maps updated every few years, on which the trail location had been correctly drawn since the first edition.

I suspect that in the very near future, cartographers will issue their maps in digital form first, and the days of painstakingly scanning in the good maps will be a confusing memory. But the digital form will never exceed the detail of the printed version, as long as I can make my own prints

Actually the primacy of digital maps is already evident - a lot of digital maps have their colors chosen for ease of use online, which makes them hard to read in printed form. I will often contrast-enhance my printouts with colored pens, which is a good way to engage in advance study anyway. (I'll also often pre-calculate mileage and time estimates for various route alternatives and add those to the map too.)

My wife kindly gave me my first gps only a couple of years ago for Christmas, so I'm still relatively new at using one.

Prior to this, for my old Sierra trips, I always used store bought USGS topo maps along with an altimeter. As long as I knew which trail or creek I was following (and I almost always did), I could pinpoint my location using the altimeter. Looking back, I don't think that I was ever truly lost on any hiking trip- even when traveling at night or in heavy storms.

Okay, so now back to the present and the present from my wife...

For several months it was a fun novelty and I enjoyed the ability to record my journeys and to see the statistics of my trips after getting home. The greater usefulness of this gaget slowly grew on me in stages. On brush covered mountain tops or whenever views were limited, I've found it to be very effective for finding the true highpoint (or at least its vicinity). A topo map and altimeter would have likely been inadequate for that kind of navigation- even with a compass thrown in.

The ability to retrace one's steps is probably one the its best features IMO. Twice I've been able to make major course corrections by checking my path on the screen. The first time was on a bushwhack where I'd unknowingly missed my ascent route and was well on my way down the wrong ridge and into a completely different drainage than the one I'd ascended. Things didn't seem right and by the time I'd remembered that I had this amazing device with me, I was shocked to discover how far off route I was. To correct my course, I had to reascend about a hundred feet or so of nasty brush, but it could have been a lot worse without the device.

I guess I do find that I use the gps more and more without bothering with paper topo maps. However, I still like having a paper trail map of what ever park or region I happen to be hiking in. I bought the California / Nevada Topo map from Garmin and I don't think it portrays all the trails in a region as well as a park trail map does. But, maybe that's not the best map for my device (recommendations? I have an Oregon 450).

What navigational tools I take into the field is totally variable. It is a combo of hard copy maps, compass, altimeter, GPS with or without maps loaded, and my phone (with a myriad of apps for navigation).

From wide snowfields to glaciers to complex Cascade drainages to easy front range canyons to grade 5 'schwacking to alpine meadow stomping...it totally depends.

I will say that the hard copies and 'real' GPS have, for years now, been slowly relegated to backup status to the phone. As much as I scoffed initially, the true capability of modern smartphones has surpassed all the old methods and tools. There is a slew of navigation apps now available that give us a massive amount of information that we never had before. With easily enough battery power for typical three day trips and plenty of waterproof cases...it's a no brainer.

And in whiteouts...

I use both. A paper map in my pocket that I consult frequently to check progress and identify nearby features. Printed on "Rite in the Rain" copy paper -- more durable than regular paper: http://www.amazon.com/Rite-Rain-White-Copy-Paper/dp/B0016H1RYE/ref=sr_1_11?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1441132686&sr=1-11&keywords=rite+in+the+rain.

On my smartphone, a free app from Backcountry Navigator: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.crittermap.backcountrynavigator.license&hl=en, that I preload before the trip with CalTopo maps of the area: http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=38.8,-98.4&z=5&b=t. When I (not infrequently) get off-trail or confused, I just push a button and get my location marked on a topo map. Wonderful.

Last weekend I was hiking in the Clark Range and, as usual, got off-trail. Pulled out the phone only to find I'd forgotten to put it in "airplane mode" -- dead battery. Fortunately I had the paper map to help me get back on track.

One thing about a dedicated hand=held gps... you can usually get at least 18hrs on a pare of Li batteries. I always carry a second set.

I've been waiting for the smartphone revolution... some Galaxy phones have incredible battery life (well, much longer than iPhones)... if only they had better reception in deep canyons...

Bob Burd wrote:Do others have strong feelings about this one way or another?

Call me Old Skool, but I think using a GPS for primary nav is stoopid. Er, makes you stoopid.

Hey, you asked.

Map and compass, baby. GPS for backup if you desire.

I was a professional navigator, and I've navigated all over the North America, the Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Indian Ocean, Africa, Europe and the Atlantic with a map & compass. We didn't even have GPS back then.

During the early days of GPS about 25 years ago, I had job in Space Command tracking the GPS satellites and running daily manual differential calculations to calibrate the satellite orbits. Basically, my daily math determined the accuracy of all GPS units in use at the time.

Funny, 25 years later... and I've never needed a GPS.
Never owned a GPS.
Never used a GPS.

oLd SkOoL LEdGe RaT