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Yes, a very efficent system. A number of NY SAR teams have one set, as well as a few Rangers have them in their trucks. Easy to make and fairly comfortablre to use. I have used one while on "mock search" training events, but not (yet) on a real rescue incident.

Around my home in the western Adirondacks, and also today during a trail steward stint all day on top of one of the centeral Adirondack fire tower mountains with a sweeping distant view. Colors this year seem very muted with a very few isolated vibrant exceptions. Some say it is bacause we had a...

We're on a sine wave curve with slowest change peaks and velleys at the solstices. Near the equinox we are on the steepest fastest changing slope portion of the sine curve where the change is in one direction only.

Mountman Outdoors in Saratoga is a but small percentage of the store in Old Forge NY. Although that store has recently been sold to another owner, it carries on as it was.

I receive the NYSDEC weekly SAR reports. one of my favorite very common responses is when assistance is give to the subject who says something like: "I did not think to bring a flashlight or headlamp because my phone has a light built in, and it also has a compass and a map app. Besides, I did...

That has always been my philosophy about navigation, whether it be in the air or on land. I started life learning to land navigate from my father, who, at first was a mystery to me how he did it without any trails and only rarely referring to a simple lapel compass. (with knowledge that was...

The NYSDEC recently moved from years of widespread use of Terrain Navigator Pro to now full support and use of Caltopo/SARtopo, which is particularly important for SAR incident field operations. Good news for me because after many years of requests to the company, TNP. has always fiercely...

I am not often hiking on trails very far. Mostly I use a trail to get to a place where iI can get OFF the trail to begin a bushwhack to some remote location. But a hikiing stick is sometimes useful while on the trail before my hands become occupied with map and compass off trail. A stick or...

I have been hiking, camping, and canoeing, since the 1960's, and a licensed wilderness guide and BSA high adventure trek leader instructor since 1990. A caver and underground technical climber in the 1970’s with the climbing gear of the day. Also as a canoe racer I've seen and owned several...

Take a trip on the way-back-machine to the early 1970's when I was in college in NY State and was part of a very active outing club, focusing mainly on cave exploration. The University was generous with funding us, which we spent almost 100% on our favored underground climbing sport, mainly with...

from the shore of Lake Ontario near Watertown NY. High variable thickness clouds. this is the best I could do with that. yesterday was solid blue sky horizon to horizon.

I had to think long and hard about how I would rate viewing a partial eclipse (of which I have seen many), to the experience of seeing a totally eclipsed sun (my fourth). Here's what I thought of that is pretty close to the kind of extreme personal difference: Imagine a rural kid who really...

My brother has a cottage (formerly inherited and owned by both of us) very near the centerline on the shore of Lake Ontario, not far from Watertown NY. I will have 3 telescopes set up there for family and local residents to enjoy 3m 30s of totality.

While my home is well within the zone of totality, I will be traveling to my brother's (formerly both of ours) camp on the edge of lake Ontario which is on the center line. Past eclipse experience shows that you will wish for every possible lingering second of totality. If not socked in by...

Right, even a simple lapel compass could have been enough to save much grief. So much the better along with a map in a sturdy wind and water proof protective case. Regardless of where you roam, there is the unwritten "rule of up", which means that as long as you continue to travel in an overall...

I believe the change was made so that official measurments are taken on a flat board out in the open. The board is measured for snow depth and then scraped each hour to accumulate uncompressed snow depth each hour. If it is not done this way and allowed to accumulate in total, the snow...

8 inches and it seems to have stopped herer on the eastern edge of Tug Hill NY, western edge of the Adirondacks. I had planned to wait until Monday to blow out my driveway, but I did it Sunday afternoon instead under a cloudy but no snow sky. 8 inches is nothing compared to a normal usual Lake...

I do have a steel roof, quite old, with multiple layers of protective aluminum asphalt coatings, making it somewhat rough and easy for a first layer of ice to stick instead of sliding off. I believe it was around 1977 when this area received as much as 400 inches of snow that season, and often...

I don't remember if this photo was the first, second, third, or fourth roof shoveling of the season. it is a an old (>50 yrs) cabin hand built by my father without power tools and I may go more there in winter often than absolutely necessary after heavy lake effect snowfalls to ensure it is...