GPS or Map & Compass?

[RoySwkr]

I think the never-ending hubbub over GPS vs. map and compass is that the quantum leap from M&C to GPS technology has had a really big and instant impact on the overall bushwhacking experience.

I don't consider GPS a "quantum leap" over M&C. In certain cases it may help you easily find a point otherwise missed or call in a rescue, but you still have to beat your way through the same scrub

I would say the following things have improved the general bushwhacking experience far more than GPS, and yes I use them too

* Vastly upgraded paper maps - anyone using 15' quads or 1st edition DeLorme knows what I'm talking about
* Ready availability of satellite photos - on the 3k I once used an orthophotoquad that turned a long car shuttle into a short walk but now I use them routinely to find better starting points
* E-mail and internet to share route information - I don't think availability of GPS would have increased amount of bushwhacking if you still had to use old boy networks to find names of route experts and then communicate with them by US mail and expensive long distance calls - one guy it cost me an hour's pay to talk to him
* Better roads and cars - I can get to Appalachia maybe half an hour faster and home maybe 2 hours faster thanks to I-93 and other improvements, and with a/c and cruise control I arrive at the trailhead more rested and get home more relaxed

 

[timmus]

I know people who does bushwhacks only, they hate trails. They don't even do peaks, they just enjoy the forest. Some are searching for birds, hunting deer or moose, others are looking for mushrooms. Just trying to get to a specific pond (or base of a slide ) can be fun. Of course, they stick to open woods, avoid cliffs and turn back when the rain starts. Time doesn't matter much. Sunset-sunrise, that's it.

We're all different. I like summits more than mushrooms and birds-and I'm scared of animals. So the more peaks I can get the better my day is. I need the GPS to go faster, simple as is. When I did the Jay Range in VT with Neil, he said : let's try navigation with m&c only, it's going to be much more fun. Yeah, fun ! But we didn't reach our goal and I was a little bit pissed because I had to go back a second time to get the last peak (Big Jay). He didn't care, he had fun.

Nobody's wrong in this, we're just different. Let's keep it this way.

 

[Nessmuk]

After all - when you get on that plane heading cross country, do you expect the pilot and copilot to be using a map & compass? I think not.

Fundamentally different, unless all you care about is a direct line to reaching the summit and don't care about the best views along the way. When on a business trip, go high and ignore the cloud shrouded earth thousands of feet below - stick to the published jet routes at 35,000 feet and just get me to the end fast and safe. Some folks hike the same way and that is fine for them. But I'd rather the bush pilot share the entire exciting route with me, take me down into the canyons, teach me about the glaciers, where they come from, how to find my way by them, and what's around the next mountain - don't just land me blindfolded on a remote lake and say there you are.

Or how about undergoing surgery and the surgeon says he doesn't use the latest technology even though it's available to him because it makes the desired outcome too easy to achieve.

Same argument - all you really care about is the latest/best technology used to the best advantage to the end goal of waking up in the recovery room alive and well. You could care less about the steps to get there. Use the best tools available.

On the other hand, when the value of wanting to fully experience what time on the journey itself offers, and of the satisfaction of improving time-honored skills is at least as great as the final goal, one may think differently.

 

[AMF]

....When you started the thread, I was hoping they'd be others like me who have embraced the GPS as compared to map & compass it's a vastly superior tool, despite the diehard m&c crowd....

I at first embraced it until doing a side be side comparison and found gps inferior for that application (navigating from the deck of a kayak at sea). Now I would be the first to admit there are applications where it can be the best - its a question of using the right technology for the job at hand.

That said, I would suggest that, based on the number of people who seem to drive off the road in their car when following a gps, that an old fashioned folding road map has a lot going for it!

 

[Paradox]

I tend to be a datahead, checking my progress constantly on the GPS which I carry on my left shoulder. I always have a map and compass, but only use them when corridor monitoring.

I guess I should be smashing textile machines next (see how many folks get that obscure reference)

I expected these types would be looming over us. (Do you like the way I wove that into the thread?)

 

[Neil]

After all - when you get on that plane heading cross country, do you expect the pilot and copilot to be using a map & compass? I think not.

Fundamentally different, unless all you care about is a direct line to reaching the summit and don't care about the best views along the way. When on a business trip, go high and ignore the cloud shrouded earth thousands of feet below - stick to the published jet routes at 35,000 feet and just get me to the end fast and safe. Some folks hike the same way and that is fine for them. But I'd rather the bush pilot share the entire exciting route with me, take me down into the canyons, teach me about the glaciers, where they come from, how to find my way by them, and what's around the next mountain - don't just land me blindfolded on a remote lake and say there you are.

Excellent reply! (even if someone could counter that using a GPS doesn't necessarily eliminate hiking according to the bush pilot analogy)

 

[HH1]

Map and compass is simple, elegant and works well enough to get you where you want to go in the backcountry.

Perhaps its biggest strength, though, is that keeps the navigator humble. For, try as you might, because YOU are doing your own processing, sometimes tired, under stress, the potential for screwing up is always there.

Recovering and learning from those inevitable errors is the flip side of the coin – makes you that much better a navigator and your bushwhacking experiences all the richer.

If you are caught between the world of GPS and M&C, why not scale down your next bushwhack a bit and leave the GPS at home? You might be amazed at the results.

 

[DougPaul]

That said, I would suggest that, based on the number of people who seem to drive off the road in their car when following a gps, that an old fashioned folding road map has a lot going for it!

I have also seen people reading a map propped up on the steering wheel while driving. I'll bet that some of those also end up driving off the road too.

The GPSes or maps don't cause cars to go off the road--it is the idiots behind the wheel that cause the car to go off the road. The idiot behind the wheel (and the similarly idiotic news media) simply try to pass blame over to the GPS.

Doug

 

[bikehikeskifish]

I expected these types would be looming over us. (Do you like the way I wove that into the thread?)

Oh great. Things are beginning to unravel.

Tim

 

[Nessmuk]

Map and compass is simple, elegant and works well enough to get you where you want to go in the backcountry.

Perhaps its biggest strength, though, is that keeps the navigator humble. For, try as you might, because YOU are doing your own processing, sometimes tired, under stress, the potential for screwing up is always there.

During my early days of self-taught backcountry navigation (years before gps was even a dream), I set out to find my way from one major landform to another in the deep woods, a very simple process given that the destination was large and distinct enough. I didn't know much then, but I got by. I became comfortable to travel a considerable distance in (what I thought was) nearly featureless terrain without knowing precisely where I was, because I knew I would always find something identifiable if I paid attention to my course and time with M&C, and chose my backstops carefully. As I learned how to observe and pay more attention to where I was at every step, especially to the places where and reasons why I screwed up, the process of learning the skill more and more pleasured me. Often more so than the destination itself.

The greatest learning experiences came from mistakes of many kinds... mistakes that I would study to know enough to never make again. Sit down, think hard about where I had been, figure out where I am, match observations to the map, test the hypothesis over the next ridge. The only available "bailout" was logical thinking. The great unknown between major landforms shrunk as I learned to navigate by lesser and lesser landforms to closer spaced intermediate destinations. Eventually the unknown shrunk to zero, or effectively so to where it would not make any significant difference in my track to any given destination.

I worry that people don't do this anymore, and are missing out on a rewarding learning experience. Try it, it really is fun.

 

[DougPaul]

Map and compass is simple, elegant and works well enough to get you where you want to go in the backcountry.

Perhaps its biggest strength, though, is that keeps the navigator humble. For, try as you might, because YOU are doing your own processing, sometimes tired, under stress, the potential for screwing up is always there.

Recovering and learning from those inevitable errors is the flip side of the coin – makes you that much better a navigator and your bushwhacking experiences all the richer.

People also make navigational errors using GPSes. Learning from them can also make you a better navigator. Either approach requires skill to use effectively* and using a combination of both is better than either alone.

* The skill sets overlap to a significant extent.

If you are caught between the world of GPS and M&C, why not scale down your next bushwhack a bit and leave the GPS at home? You might be amazed at the results.

Yawn... The GPS is just a navigational tool--I've bushwacked with and without and it is still a bushwack either way.

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

Oh great. Things are beginning to unravel.

Beginning?

Doug

 

[Ed'n Lauky]

If you are caught between the world of GPS and M&C, why not scale down your next bushwhack a bit and leave the GPS at home? You might be amazed at the results.

As the saying goes: I'll give up my GPS when they unwrap my cold dead fingers from around that smooth fitting case.

 

[Paradox]

Oh great. Things are beginning to unravel.

Tim

Frayed so.

 

[Little Rickie]

Oh great. Things are beginning to unravel.

Tim

Just living on the fringe. Weave be fine so far, just have to be carefull about the yarns we spin before this looms and drifts.

 

[Jason Berard]

We all go to the woods for different reasons, and we pick our tools accordingly. I imagine we all pick the tools we think will add the most to our enjoyment of the woods, whatever our varied (recreational) purpose there is.

For work, I use both, but I navigate faster with a GPS, which is important for efficiency's sake. I do think using a GPS has stunted my skill development with M & C. Perhaps I would be better ( faster, with few-to-no errors) with M & C if I used it exclusively, but I won't ever know.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Yup, the thread is nearing its end of life. But just a couple points.

I use a GPS once in a while, and I'm starting to use it for geocaching. But Laurie thinks I have a pretty good built in compass, and I certainly know how to read a map, terrain, visual clues, etc.

To those who say they never have to change the battery in their compass, they can break, get lost, get de-magnetized, and point in the wrong direction due to local anomalies, e.g. the summit of Hale. And I even remember a question from an accomplished (?) peakbagger, "Which end points North?"

So really it all comes down to using your BRAIN!