GPS , topo maps or both? What do you bring?

"I know i can find my way in the trails outside the city, but not so sure about JMT, PCT, etc"

The remote sections JMT/PCT are very well marked. You don't even map to find your way. But get into Reds Meadow/Devils Postpile, or Toulumne Meadows, and the maze of trails will be confounding.

And the GPS won't help. Sure it will tell you that the store is 235 meters in some direction, but not how to get there.(Assuming you are not running a 2 pound "maps all" GPS.)

How did John Muir ever manage ?

How did John Muir ever manage ?

+1

I use both, especially if the map has a UTM grid (most do, nowadays). UTM grid on map + UTM readout on GPS = delight. I used maps long before GPS receivers were consumer items, so the marvel for me is "the map proves the GPS is right," not the other way around.

But a GPSR has many fun uses beyond "am I lost or found?": ETA, resuable tracks, "what's that thing called over there (an how far away is it really)?", how long to civil sunset, etc. I _think_ I will always carry a GPS, but I _know_ I will always carry a map and compass.

Fortunately, I've always underestimated battery life, so I've never run out of GPS juice. (Even if my batteries were low, there's a power-saving setting, as well as the workflow of intermittent use instead of continual use, to eek out every mAh from them.)

Having both is redundant, IMO.

GPS can break or the batteries can go dead. A compass can break too, but that has never happened to me.

I do a lot of cross country hiking, and rarely need the compass. Maps alone work, but sometimes a compass is needed.

I often don't even take a compass, if I am near well marked trails. There are other methods to figure out your orientation.

Learning to use map and compass takes time and practice.

I am not 100% against a GPS. I sometimes take one in winter because heavy snow changes the topography. But heavy cloud cover or deep canyons can turn a GPS into a paper weight.

Another benefit of my Garmin GPS is that there are ancient trails on some of their maps which are not on USGS or other commercial maps. Often when I am interested in a new area, I will use Map Point software to see if there are other trails. Usually I draw these trails on my map and leave the GPS home. What is nice about this, is that I can hike in an area that might be heavily used, but travel where others do not. However, these old trails can be overgrown and difficult to find/travel. Another benefit of these old trails is that people used them to get to a destination… often some pretty cool places. My wife and I have a favorite 16 mile loop near the PCT. A good portion of our loop is on an unmarked trail. We have never seen another person on this trail, and it is a much more scenic route. We hike this trail a lot. My only fear is that someone will discover the trail and publish it in a book or send it to Backpacker magazine :(

I carry both. I have a small Garmin Foretrx 501. In addition to using it with the map if I want. I also like having a recorded route to upload when I return. Like a digital trophy of sorts. And, it logs a lot of performance data.

And as far a John Muir, none of us here are John Muir. And, just because he managed does not mean there are lots of people who did not. We do not hear about them.

I am not saying GPS is absolutely necessary. Just annoying to see it flippantly dismissed as a viable tool.

@ Simon – Just looked up UTM grid – apparently there is also a small transparency tool which can make finding specific location a lot easier.
http://www.maptools.com/products/UTMGrids.html

I do NOT use a GPS.

I really feel that tool has created a population of backcountry users with very poor maps skills. Maybe if I was on a boat on an ocean I would find it useful. I became skilled with map and compass in the era before the GPS was available. It is a skill I enjoy greatly!

In most hiking situations, I use a tiny compass with 1:100,000 scale maps (cut down)

If I am in more challenging terrain (canyon country in Utah for example) I'll use 7.5 minute maps and a small compass.

If I am in a place with lots of white outs (like big glaciers of alaska) I'll use a sighting compass with the declination adjusted, and 7.5 minute maps.

" And as far a John Muir, none of us here are John Muir. "

well, in a previous thread I foolishly raised this issue and was shot down big time by almost everyone saying HYOH HYOH HYOH HYOH HYOH
but I still don't get. Don't you go into the wilderness to at least "pretend" you are John Muir ?
Why bring civilization to the wilderness to try and make it as much like home as possible ?
Don't you have ANY desire to try and meet the wilderness on its own terms.

The Indians didn't have GPS, compass, and probably not even maps. They didn't get lost.
Most of the time a good understanding of Topography is all you need.

Art, I'm with you on keeping the wilderness experience wild and not bringing technology. But if the choice is either getting lost or bringing GPS to help me find my way, i would rather bring a GPS.

Now the original question was what do all of you do for yourselves? Maybe i just need to improve my map skills to a point where i feel comfortable with map only.

i always carry a map but i carried a few times a gps and it was a serious help :

in areas with no map. for exemple in Greenland only some large scale maps of key area exists, if you go elsewhere its google earth and praying the photo wasnt taken in winter.

for some winter hikes, it helped me in white out, i have used azimut hiking for 30 years but they are days when you dont see much farther than your feet when it doesnt help much.

it helped me once for night hiking ( while i bringed it only for the part in the snow ) when i followed a wrong and dead path, decided ( wrongly ) to take an azimut and ended crossing by night a maze of dead / live wood with water up to our knees in Patagonia
the marsh wasnt on the map….

so while i am 95% of the time old school ( and old too..) with map and compass, they are a few times i take one when i expect it could be meaningfull

There is a reason folks are saying HYOH. THere seem to be a handful of folks that have a black and white, it is my way or just wrong attitude.

Personally, being active military for nearly the last 2 decades, I am well trained in both topography and electronic navigation. I choose to have the GPS as a backup and a recorder. I enjoy being able to look back at the routes and share them with friends. I still know how to, and do use a map and compass. I CHOOSE to bring it.

I find it odd that folks will shell out for the latest technology to make things lighter, but cannot fathom a little technology to make things safer/more fun/whatever. John Muir did not have Sil Nylon or Cuben fabric either.

Anyway, the OP is asking us what we bring and why. I answered that. What John Muir, American Indians etc… did or did not bring is not an answer to the question.

So as you have heard before HYOH.

Having navigated successfully with a topo map and compass for 60-some years, I see no reason to try to learn another new gadget. I'm still struggling through the owner's manual with my 4-year-old camera! Nor am I interested in weighing down my pack with still more batteries.

I agree that many younger folk don't know how to use maps. For my daughter's wedding, she and I collaborated on a map to the farm at which it was held and sent it out with the invitations, after running it by several people to make sure the directions were understandable. While most of the older folk got there just fine, most of the under-35 crowd got lost! I don't know whether it's the lack of geography classes in school or the fact that gas stations no longer provide free maps.

Great comments with which I completely agree.

Here’s my two cents:

I have never wanted a GPS for the backcountry. For me, a GPS removes one of the challenges of being in the backcountry; that of navigation. To be challenged on several levels is an integral part of the backcountry experience. The desire to be challenged should be at the core of every man; especially in the wilderness environment. The GPS removes this challenge and replaces it with a false sense of security and a lack of basic skill. A GPS removes one aspect of enjoyment and satisfaction in the wilderness – that of successful navigation.

There is a reason they still teach map and compass skills to new USMC officers during TBS…

But then I grew up in a different time with a father who taught me to value those challenges, and many don’t have that blessing today.

And now for a personal experience:
One particular trip I led in the late ’90s involved a Friday night hike up to Whangaehu Hut on Mt Ruapehu. I had been there once before on a ski-touring trip with my uncle and the NZAC, and now was leading a small group of friends from the university there this particular Friday night. It was dark, as nights tend to be, it was snowing as winters tend to do, and we had maps and compass only, as any good outdoorsman should. I navigated us to within two meters of the hut right on the edge of a 50 meter cliff. Of course we couldn’t see the hut from two meters away, in the dark with our headlamps illuminating the cold wet snowflakes, and as we gathered just two meters from the front door of the hut the group consensus was we were too low down the shelf and we should head up the shelf and there would be the hut. Of course it wasn’t further up the shelf, and once we reached steep ground we knew we had erred and the hut was down a bit further from where we were a half hour ago. And so it was.

When morning light came we found our prints all gathered together in the snow just two meters from the front door and figured out just how close we were. We never saw the hut, or the cliff that dropped away into the valley, that night. Why am I telling this story? Because if we had a GPS, and knew how to use it, we would have found the hut just fine, and the trip would long have been forgotten and filed away as an uneventful trip. Yet it wasn’t. It was memorable, it was exciting, and all these years later I can still remember all the details of that navigational challenge. It was an awesome winter night hike in a storm.

With a GPS all the fun would have gone and we would have simply been cold and wet instead of cold, wet, and inspired.

Don’t rob yourself of a blessing and learn the way of the map. Learn how to interpret a map, how to visualize the terrain you read on the map. Learn how to tell what’s important on the map, and what’s not. Learn how to simplify the map and go rogaining or orienteering and really learn some more skills with the map. It might save your life.

"But heavy cloud cover or deep canyons can turn a GPS into a paper weight."

Heavy cloud cover has zero effect on a GPS receiver. Absolutely zero.

–B.G.–

"Now the original question was what do all of you do for yourselves? Maybe i just need to improve my map skills to a point where i feel comfortable with map only."

What I recommend is to join an orienteering club. Over time, you will become pretty good with a topo map. About the only extra tool used is a tiny compass.

Alternative to that, enlist in the Army or Marines, and go through advanced infantry training. You will spend a lot of time with Land Nav. Then put that training into practice. There are lots of places in the world where you need to know which side of the line you are on.

Despite all of that, I still carry a small GPS receiver as a backup tool.

–B.G.–

nutting wrong with using a GPS or other fancy smancy "here be the bears" tech …

but i do suggest every trip now and then you only use yr compass and map with GPS as a check to keep yr skills current

"but i do suggest every trip now and then you only use yr compass and map with GPS as a check to keep yr skills current"

Absolutely. There are several ways that a GPS receiver and a topo map can have a "misunderstanding." In some cases, it is due to user error. Once you get really proficient with each tool, you can sort it out much quicker.

There are places like a slot canyon where GPS reception gets iffy to the point of failure. Of course, in a place like that, you won't be able to see landmarks very far away to get a compass bearing, so it doesn't matter.

What you really need is _situational_awareness_. If you are paying close enough attention to your progress across a printed map, you will seldom get lost. Too many people wait until they get lost, and then they try to figure out where they went wrong.

–B.G.–

"The Indians didn't have GPS, compass, and probably not even maps. They didn't get lost.
Most of the time a good understanding of Topography is all you need."

But they did have generations of experience and a lifetime of living in their terrain. We need some assistance as we: 1) don't live in the wilderness 24/7 and 2) we frequently go visiting many different areas with wildly different terrain.

I carry both GPS and topo, along with compass and altimeter. I have a small Garmin foretrex which just reads out UTM coords, then plot them on the map when necessary. But, as my experience and training have improved, I find that I don't use the GPS or compass much anymore and more frequently use just the map and terrain recognition. Sometimes the altimeter is useful. These changes have occurred over time with practice so I would bet the same would be true for most people; your needs will evolve..

Bob said, "Heavy cloud cover has zero effect on a GPS receiver. Absolutely zero."

From previous threads, it is obvious you have GPS expertise. I do not. My first GPS was a Magellan unit I bought in the 90's. Inside a building, forget it. It took forever to get a fix outside and often would not work in poor weather. But that could have been due to other factors like moisture. Overall it was a general pain in the butt, and I quickly went back to maps.

A couple years ago my wife bought me a Garmin eTrex. Gets a fix pretty quick and even works in the house. Generally I only take the GPS on day hikes with my wife, and I use it to make her happy with her gift-giving acumen :)

"One particular trip…I navigated us to within two meters of the hut right on the edge of a 50 meter cliff."

My old Magellan had a stated accuracy of 100 meters horizontal and 150 meters vertical. You may have walked over the edge of that cliff with the GPS.

Yep. It sounds like I purchased the same old Magellan Trailblazer receiver back in the 1994-1995 period. Even though it was very slow and frustrating, it worked. In 1996, I climbed a near-7000-meter peak, and the Magellan showed the summit elevation as only one meter off the surveyed elevation. Of course, that was half luck. But then, it was the highest peak in the hemisphere, so I didn't need to wonder about the view of the sky. It also helped steer me back to high camp when hypoxia had kicked in.

Either fortunately or unfortunately, in 1997 it failed. I purchased a Garmin then which is still operating to this day.

The modern receivers of today are much faster in time to first fix. Part of that is due to better hardware and part is due to better heuristics in the software.

Still, "There is a fool who can overcome any foolproof scheme." So, map and compass.

–B.G.–

"Alternative to that, enlist in the Army or Marines, and go through advanced infantry training. You will spend a lot of time with Land Nav."

And it is (or for me was) excellent training. I did extensive training with both the Air Force and the Army. Actually the Air Force training was very specialized and was better, but it is not a course a basic Airman is going to get. And it was usually night navigation, with maps that excluded distant prominent landmarks, not mention that they tried to avoid nights with a good moon. Oh, and regarding borders, in real conditions sometimes they wanted us on the "wrong" side of the border :(

To be honest, I really don't see anything wrong using a GPS if that is the route someone wishes to take. But as mentioned earlier by several people, it should not be a substitute to competency with a map and compass.

Most of my hiking life has been dayhikes and most of those were taken without any aids. Some were well-marked trails, but most were off trail in mostly-familiar terrain. B/c of this I have a good understanding of reading terrain, but no real life experience with map and compass. Currently, I'm teaching myself b/c I won't always be hiking in woods I know. However, I don't see myself considering a GPS until I start hiking actual remote terrain where if I got lost I couldn't just walk till I hit a road and follow it out. And even then I sort of doubt it. I don't know if my inexperience counts for much, but I'm not going to be substituting GPS for skills, which has been raised as a concern on the no-GPS side.