GPS controversy explained.

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I use both as well, but I'll admit it took me a little while to warm up to actually buying a GPS, when I had my much more economical and fully functional maps!

It was discovering Google Earth that really sucked me into the GPS scene. I love maps, and now one of my favorite pastimes is uploading my GPS track into my gigantic Google Earth master map and playing with the perspective to see how my hike went over the topography, and how many more areas are still "unexplored" by me... (Sad... I know! :) )

It has also been a great tool at finding out later how close I was to an off-trail pond, ledge, or other area that bears further exploration on another trip, which is something a traditional map & compass could not readily do.

I quickly learned to completely ignore the "trails" that show up on my GPS... the information is usually decades out of date (the aforementioned Garfield Pond cutoff and the old location of the Osseo trail to name a few). Instead I concentrate on the topography, or use trail tracks from actual trips I have made previously to the area, and usually cross-reference the coordinates with the paper map I bring along, as the tiny screen is frustrating to navigate with.

I still would not consider going out on a major hike without the paper map and compass.

I can definitely understand the contention between the old-school map&compass veterans and the new GPS crowd. When something comes along that makes a learned skill just an afterthought in the everyday behind-the-scenes function of a device, it is hard to take. The GPS user who is waiting for his or her device to say 'turn right here' when hiking is easily a contemptible plebe. As well as the one who shouts "point three miles to the top' and spoils all the adventure.

But used as a tool for furthering the scope of your adventure, I believe it is an advantageous device to have.

Now, even more seriously, I've got to try and get over the casual photographer with tons of disposable cash who just bought the newest high-definition DSLR with the gigantic lens, crowing about his photography prowness! Don't get me started! :mad:
 
Food for thought and perspective.

rubbing two sticks together

flint & steel

matches

butane lighters


I carry one or two butane lighters and use them, I usually use matches, flint & steel is my current fascination and will someday make and use a bowl & drill fire starter.

Whats right? What's more convient? What's more efficent? What's more fun?

Why worry about it? I don't see a controversy.
 
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If I'm bushwhacking from A to B, I need three things: a willing and able body, an ability to navigate from A to B, and the smarts to pick the appropriate ways as I head to B.

In my books, GPS use blackboxes the navigation component and reduces the bushwhacking's three things to two.

Is this good or bad?

To me, when you play in the "wilderness", it depends on whether you are pragmatic or ideological, because the pro and con GPS armies seem to be divided between these two personality tendencies.

The pragmatists will argue that GPS not only largely does away with the mundane tasks of navigation, but does so bringing with it a degree of precision that no dead reckoning map and compass type can match. If enjoyment weightings were put on each of the above bushwhacking components, it seems to me the pragmatists would assign a zero to navigation.

Ideologues, like myself and I think several others on this board, place a heavy enjoyment weighting on traditional navigation. Our reasons are not so much based on practicality but much more on the IDEA of what wilderness, and wilderness bushwhacking, are all about.

Neil says it best when he states that possession of good traditional navigation skills are the hallmark of competent and self reliant outdoors people.

And the more self reliance is short changed due to growing dependencies with the outside world through devices like GPS and cell phones, like Remix said, the less wilderness there is.

And that's sad.
 
Neil said:
My interest is not which method is better, more rewarding or more sporting. I'm intrigued by what is behind so much (the plethora ;)) controversy.
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IMO alot of what is behind the perceived controversy is that we have alot of people whom navigate in the outdoors with map and compass and developed those skills before GPS was available and then have actually used it in addition to map and compass without ever getting rid of their map and compass. In contrast to we now have lots of people whom use GPS without ever learning Map and Compass.
 
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First of all, let me say I learned map and compass many years ago to help with archeology, and to compete in Orienteering.

Because this year was our "Bushwack Year" I taught my wife how to set a course on the compass, and follow it. Using this method we proved we could go out and come back to the same spot pretty accurately.
Now I make my own maps on TOPO, Put some waypoints in that we might want to hit, and especially the destination.I then upload them to the GPS.
Once we are hiking the most important spot to lay down a waypoint on the GPS is the point where we leave the trail and begin a bushwack. This has gotten us back out in times where we DID NOT make our objective.

I don't know about anyone else, but the GPS hasn't yet made any of this EASY.There is Course Selection always. My GPS does not help with or even show Spruce. Then there is STUBBORNESS which I own. This makes me insist on going too far right and having to climb the cliffs to Vose Spur. But it does give me confidence that at least I can go more or less directly back to the point where I came in. This is worth a lot to me.
 
jniehof said:
He insisted the trail must be maintained because it was on his GPS, and the money quote: "I can't get lost. I have a GPS."
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I use two very good topo programs with my GPS and they both showed a trail that didn't exist. When we came to a river crossing I said to my wife, lets just bushwhack this tenth of a mile to the trail and save crossing the river twice. After spending 30 minutes looking for the non-existing trail we finally pulled out the paper and realized we were a half mile from anywhere. The GPS got us lost but once we looked at the map the GPS got us back on track. Well we weren't really lost, we just didn't know where we were.
 
The Hikers said:
...the GPS hasn't yet made any of this EASY.There is Course Selection always. My GPS does not help with or even show Spruce.
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Whoa! That's absolutely correct! We need a "Spruce Finder" GPS, kinda like the Fish Finder! Bushwhacks will be a snap - sign me up! :cool::D
 
I don't think most would agree that a gps doesn't do the climb for you, show rock faces or blowdown that need to be contoured, get you through cripplebush and so on.

In my mind, the difference under debate relates to navigation. Someone said it well higher up when they mentioned geocaching.
 
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RoySwkr said:
And nobody has yet responded to my comment in the Vose Spur note that with a GPS you actually have to go to the summit, you can't just quit at some likely bump lower down :)
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Somehow I'm missing the point here. Is that good or bad? For me the object was finding the canister and the GPS was some help here in leading me to the summit. However, I do remember that on Elephant (ME) my GPS showed another peak as the summit. Fortunately, from the direction I was coming I came first to the peak with the canister. At that point I signed in and went back. Had I come to the GPS indicated summit first and not found the canister I'm not sure what I would have done, but it's possible I might have assumed the canister was missing and just gone back.

What no one else has mentioned here so far is that I just find it "fun" to use a GPS.:) I use it on trails where there is absolutely no need of one. I just enjoy seeing where I am. The same with the altimeter. For me, I just enjoy using it. I generally don't need it. I don't need the thermometer I carry either. I just find it interesting to check it from time to time.
 
Ed'n Lauky said:
However, I do remember that on Elephant (ME) my GPS showed another peak as the summit. Fortunately, from the direction I was coming I came first to the peak with the canister. At that point I signed in and went back. Had I come to the GPS indicated summit first and not found the canister I'm not sure what I would have done, but it's possible I might have assumed the canister was missing and just gone back.
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At least as of 2006, you could sign in on either summit. The summit .6 mile to the NE of the "official canister" summit had the remains of a canister and a ziplock bag with a register with plenty of signatures - people who believed they had reached the summit of Elephant (several swearing never to return). That was once considered the "true summit," I've read, and I could detect no difference between the two by my altimeter - they are at least nearly equal.

We then proceeded SW to the "true" summit, and we had no GPS to blame for taking us to the other one first. In retrospect, I'm glad we visited both.

I agree with you and skiguy that mapping GPS's are big fun, now that I finally own one.
 
On long hikes, on marked (Real) trails, I leave the GPS buried, but I love how it it can tell me how far I have hiked,how long I have hiked, (is it time for a break?), and how much altitude we have gained, whenever I am curious about these things. When the trail seems too long, and I start having my doubts, it's real comforting to know where I'm at in a glance.
 
re: a spruce finder

NeoAkela said:
Whoa! That's absolutely correct! We need a "Spruce Finder" GPS, kinda like the Fish Finder! Bushwhacks will be a snap - sign me up! :cool::D
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Speaking of spruce finders, has anyone tried to identify spruce bands using Google Earth??? I have tried to match areas of spruce from my actual whacks with how these areas look on GE. I must admit that I have been anything but systematic and organized about this, and I suspect that this is probably pretty useless- but it is a great distraction for work I should be doing!!

Besides, I seem to be doing a really good job on my own of finding really nice spruce.
 
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