This link is from the NYT. Though aimed at readers who use GPS units in vehicles, the message about building mental map images, not overly relying on the GPS, and issue of what happens if the unit breaks or fails is perfectly relevant to hikers.
One of the main reasons I use a GPS on all hikes but do map homework ahead of time is to keep map skills from getting dull. YMMV but good food for thought.
Good read. Reminds me of when I moved to Portland last year (and Keene this year)-- one of my friends told me to just go out driving without any form of navigation and just hope I'd show up where I was trying to go. Because getting lost is the best way to acquaint yourself with a new town. It worked pretty well, too. Within a few weeks in Portland, I could find my way around to places I'd never been just by getting partially lost and remembering random side streets I never would have been on otherwise.
Of course, driving is a little quicker than hiking. I don't think I'd like to use the exact same mode of learning on a trail system I've never seen
It is one way to learn.
I've been teaching backcountry navigation for many years, based mostly on my own early solo bushwhack learning experiences. I always recall the most memorable navigation events as being from mistakes that I made along the way on nearly every trip. But to learn from them you must catch the mistakes fairly early and most importantly figure out WHY you made such an error, and what to do to avoid the same kind of error in the future. I tell my students (after they have learned a few basic techniques) to go out to some challenging terrain in a confined area of reasonable size, like a park for example, bounded by definitive features (roads, waterways, gullies, ridges, etc). Hike there and challenge yourself to get "lost". You will learn quickly how to navigate easily after a few mistakes are discovered and corrected. A second visit to the same route will be a head slapper with you wondering why you made the mistakes you did the first time. Then you can begin to visit truly challenging remote areas.
I stress again to find errors and to recognize and correct confusion early. Recognize the inner voice saying to yourself.. "what I observe doesn't make any sense for where I think I am". You can usually backtrack one error to a previously known location by thinking it through. But compounding multiple mistakes in true wilderness without learning from them one at a time in sequence can easily lead to cause for calling out SAR.
My early years were spent as an Air Force navigator. I will never forget what my first instructor once told me... "all navigators make errors, the only difference between a new navigator and an experienced navigator is how quickly those errors are discovered and corrected (before the pilot finds out)".
I think/visualize maps. Having a reference point, roads, trail, landmark, river anchors where I am. I'm never that far from anything that I couldn't walk out of. Maybe not in the most convient place, may take some extra time and hassle but I can find my way. It's kind of fun to wonder/wander around in the woods finding and seeing things you never would have on trail.
Like a lot of things practice make perfect, you learn from your mistakes, KNOW YOUR LIMITS. There are always stoopid people that don't have a clue where ther are or what they are doing, that's life Don't bee one of them.
My dad was a navigator. Kept a simple compass in the car while driving. I do to.
Blindly following a GPS can lead you into the boonies if you aren't careful. I've read several stories of people using GPS on roads that eventually led to nowhere. But, as you point out, it is true that maps can mislead you too, if you aren't careful.
Although I thought it was so, apparently James Kim, the CNET producer was not using a GPS when his family went missing in Oregon a few years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim#Snowbound
His family was found, but Kim tried to hike out and died from hypothermia.
