Digital Camera as Navigation Aid ?

[Tom Rankin]

My wife and I just hiked Halcott in the Catskills last weekend. It was a fairly easy peak as bushwhacks go. But, I got to thinking, does anyone take a camera along and snap a picture every 200 feet or so and then use the pictures as clues for getting back the way you came? We ended up going down a different route than we came up.

I would never *rely* on a digital camera solely for navigation, just curious if anyone else has ever tried it ?

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Sounds like a reasonable idea, Tom. I don't have a digital camera yet. However, whenever I go on bushwhacks on which I intend to return the same way, I am always looking back over my shoulder and making mental notes on landmarks for the return trip. That approach has never failed me.

 

[MichaelJ]

I've never tried it as a navigation aid. However, I do use it as a timing aid: I take pictures at all the trail junctions to know later when I was where. I have also used it to take a picture of some gear before disassembling it in the field, so I wouldn't have trouble getting it back together.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Sounds like a reasonable idea, Tom. I don't have a digital camera yet. However, whenever I go on bushwhacks on which I intend to return the same way, I am always looking back over my shoulder and making mental notes on landmarks for the return trip. That approach has never failed me.

We tried leaving a bunch of tiny rock piles on the way up, but we never found them coming back down! Now I feel bad, I was going to knock them down as I went back. The ridge has tons of herd paths, and we never found the really obvious marker we left for our self, to mark where we hit the ridge. OH well...

 

[Tuco]

I have a small dvd-cam and have used it in Stokes State Forest in NJ on a trail that I used to have trouble with every time I went because the trail dissapeared for a while. I filmed the search for the trail, went home and watched it and never had trouble figuring it out again. It was impossible to really get lost since all I needed to do (and did in the past) was head north and bushwack over the hill to the AT, but it was nice to figure out where the connector trail was.

 

[HikerBob]

Interesting idea but you'd have to make sure to take pictures looking behind you. Plus it would help to take images of some kind of feature as the forest starts to look very 'samey' after a while.

When hiking, even on well marked trails, I make a point of looking back often just to get an idea of the lay of things. Surprising how different things look from that different perspective.

Bob