Technology Is Great, But Keep Thinking
Aug 23rd, 2010 by Steve Block
Although Adventioneering is a mashup of adventure and engineering, it never hurts to be reminded that we can’t rely on technology without using our brains. This New York Times article about people abusing technology and leaving common sense at home is a good reminder.
Far more common but no less perilous, park workers say, are visitors who arrive with cellphones or GPS devices and little else — sometimes not even water — and find themselves in trouble. Such visitors often acknowledge that they have pushed themselves too far because they believe that in a bind, the technology can save them.
While I doubt any of us fine, beautiful, brilliant people would ever do the sorts of things in this article, we should always remember to use our technology for good without losing our critical thinking skills. Take your GPS, load up trail maps, record your progress and hikes, but always use your brain and remember that its up to you to get out of anything short of a life or death situation on your own.
Every once in a while we get a call from someone who has gone to the top of a peak, the weather has turned and they are confused about how to get down and they want someone to personally escort them. The answer is that you are up there for the night.
Be safe and have good adventures!
We’ve gone back to using maps for the actual traveling. We use the GPS as a backup/guide/speedomotor. Plus it gives us a rough estimate of when we will get somewhere. Otherwise we use maps to figure out our routes, where we want to stop, explore ect.
The GPS puts us in places that I would rather not be when I follow it blindly.
I’ve got to agree that for exploring wilderness areas I prefer paper maps.
I have a Nuvi and a Colorado. While my Nuvi has been invaluable for driving around unfamiliar cities, it often gives me directions that are either useless or late.
The Colorado is only meant to be used for hiking, but my mastery of it has made it about as useful as a toy, especially since most of my recent adventures have been car based. A recent experience trying to get to a destination in the wilderness using only a waypoint for reference with no road/trail map was an exercise in stupidity. It must always be paired with an actual map to get any kind of accuracy.
That said, the Colorado is great for actual hiking, getting elevation data and is more useful than breadcrumbs for getting a record of where I’ve been.
My maps will never run out of batteries, are less likely to get damaged, and have an “interface” that is already intuitive and easy to use. I tend to keep trail notes for explored areas and I’ve found it difficult to do this in anything but a paper format.
I plan most of my longer motorcycle rides in Google Maps, including liberal use of Street View to check the general condition of the road and whether it is paved. I then map that route in the Garmin software and load it onto the GPS. I don’t always follow it strictly, but its a lot simpler to stay on route than trying to use paper maps. It also lets me find fuel easily if I’m running low even if it is less about actually finding fuel than about confidence that I will before I run dry.
I may start carrying paper maps as general backup though, as the GPS overview maps don’t necessarily show me the detail I want to see when I’m exploring an area or changing routes while on the road.
For hiking I’ll look at topo maps and published trail maps, but if there is a KML or similar with published trails I like to convert those and load them into the GPS as reference. Having established trails overlaid with the topographic data that also shows you where you are currently standing is a great piece of reference. Combine that with a paper map showing more area and you’re in business. Do carry extra batteries though, especially if you’re like me and use the electronic compass in your GPS rather than carrying a separate magnetic one.
Hilary is completely right about the breadcrumbs too. I would have killed for a GPS with a tracklog on our Mount Meeker disaster of many years ago. At least then we would have known where to pick up our trail for certain, rather than crossing a huge boulder field and hiking up an extra steep crumbling slope just hoping. We got it right but it would have been terrible if we were wrong.
In the wild, GPS’s have gotten me into way MORE trouble than they have ever gotten me out of. And if it’s not the nav, it’s the crappy map it has; more of a commentary on the overall solution.