I bring along a "Spot" which lets my family know where I am - without spoiling the surprise for me.
I bring along a "Spot" which lets my family know where I am - without spoiling the surprise for me.
All compass discussions lead to L&C and Lost Trail Pass!Originally Posted by Thad Gerheim
Here’s why:
L&C went over the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass, then while traveling Northward along the Eastern flank of the Bitterroot River valley, actually climbed back up to the Divide again, reaching either Lost Trail Pass or Chief Joseph Pass. But no one is really sure which pass. This is the most disputed portion of their journey.
As you say, in lieu of a better understanding from the Lemhi (that is, Shoshone) Indians, we can be sure that Clark was using his compass.
When they finally descended (again) to the Bitterroot River, still continuing Northward, they met the Salish (or Flathead) Indians at Ross Hole. It wasn’t until much later, after their perilous journey through the Bitterroot Mountains, that they met the Nez Perce people, my favorite Indians.
In any case, as they headed West to the Pacific, neither Lemhi Pass, nor Lost Trail Pass, nor Chief Joseph Pass would have been preferable to MacDonald Pass, or Lewis and Clark Pass. Either of these two latter passes would have saved them several weeks.
The more sublime the scenery, the less I need a compass. It's easier to figure out where I am; and it's easier to figure out where to go.
In the Alps I never once used a compass to navigate. Identifying distant peaks yes, but navigation never. On Dartmoor, where I learned to navigate, and in the Scottish Highlands, I regard my compass as an essential life-saver. Waiting out the clag gets tired very fast. I can still remember the safe bearings and paced distances needed to get me off the top of Ben Nevis.
Whistle, compass, spoon and toothbrush Then I'm a happy camper.
One reason I don't use a compass as much as I used to is that I now tend to re-visit old haunts. I'm also older and more experienced, so I do a lot of basic navigation like tracking the sun and keeping a rough pace count without thinking about it consciously. However, even in completely new places there is a habit of mind that quietly sets about collecting mental waypoints and confirming my orientation.
I don't suppose there are many people making Polynesian stick charts these days. But I do something similar with every new patch of landscape. When I was traipsing round my own lost corner of the Karakoram we did have an out of date 1:250000 hand-drawn map from the 1930s, but we quickly set about making our own detailed mental maps, particularly of tough passages like scree runs and lateral moraines. Photography is a natural part of the mapping process, and I like the way that these days LF punctuates a walk with memorable episodes, and how the resulting photographs will trigger not just one memory, but a whole linked web of associations.
Hello,
I live in Indiana which is one of the most populated states in the US where roads are laid down in grids or squares measuring no more then 7 miles apart from corner to corner .
Remote as they are they still lead you out and to your car or at least a phone.
I think that in the Nevada desert that number is as high as 40 miles which is a little over 2 days walking time = death.
I hardly ever use anything to navigate by where I hike since it's pointless for me.. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west but even given that I'm more likely to get turned around on the roads I travel in on.
Another good way to tell north is to look for the moss on the base of trees.. Sometimes when I'm hiking Hoosier national forest I'll travel up a creek and then backtrack, maybe leave a marker on a tree if the creek splits..
The place I liked having a compas was the car. I don't have a car anymore (and if I did I'd probably get a gps like everyone else). When driving I never had anything resembling Struan's navigatorial habits of mind, and venturing into the homogenous lands of strip-mall USA (like the suburbs of Denver when clouds hide the mountains, or almost anywhere in suburban new england) a compass could stop me for driving in circles for hours.
Unfortunately I only ever had those cheap suction-cup mounted ball-in-fluid models, and on hot days they'd cook on the dashboard, crack, and bleed all over everything toward a slow and oily death. After my third I gave up.
People can't go anywhere in their CAR anymore without the GPS talking to them let alone hiking.
The GPS car thing is the single biggest contributor to travel illiteracy on the planet.
Wow. It's nice to hear some ideas about where Lewis and Clark crossed. I was invited
on a canoe trip last year retracing some of of the expedition on the upper Missouri, but
the scheduling didn't work out. My great-grand father went to live with the Nez Perce
right after the Civil War. But other than a few photo trip through that wonderful country, the closest I have come is to own a clever apaloosa horse!
And also the most useful. I can't imagine any other way to find multiple unknown addresses in a complex urban area. Around here some roads can be named 35th Ave NW and be completely different roads than NW 35th Ave. It's insanity and I would rather learn my topo map inside and out than worry about learning about obscure street names in a urban area.
I am a civil engineer, and therefore trained as a surveyor. Though I don't do that for a living, I am completely at home with most any map, and have no trouble identifying or navigating through terrain when I can see it.
But go hiking in the piney woods north of, say, Houston, and see how those terrain-reading skills work for you. The only relief in the terrain has been left by meandering creeks over the generally flat coastal plain. And the thickness of the pine canopy will make it difficult for a GPS to see the satellites, which do require line of sight. In those cases, map and compass skills really do help.
In the Appalachian ranges where I live now, the trails are usually well enough marked by repeated use to obviate any need for navigational skills, other than to satisfy curiosity. Occasionally, one will have to poke around a bit to see where a trail starts if it is overgrown, and the trails here receive little maintenance. But the only time I've ever resorted to a map or to a GPS have been when we were curious about what we were seeing--certainly not needed to avoid getting lost.
But I have been lost. I was driving my Jeep down the Pritchett Canyon Trail in the Behind-the-Rocks area near Moab, and had never been there before. We had spent the day driving up the jeep trails from the Needles District of Canyon lands to find Pritchett Arch, and having found that, decided to descended the trail directly to the river to go into Moab rather than retrace our steps.
I made a discovery on that voyage. Orienteering has two purposes: helping people navigate whose purpose is to get there, and providing a hobby for people whose purpose is to get lost. The same could be said of off-road or jeep-trail driving. I'm of the former group in both activities, using navigation skills as a tool to get there and using the Jeep to provide access to places not otherwise accessible. I don't do either for their own sake. Pritchett Canyon Road is intended for those who drive Jeeps on such trails as a hobby, not for those who just want to get there.
After the second time we'd had to winch ourselves over some obstacle too steep to drive, it got dark, and we lost the road and we camped. Thus ensued two hours of active discussion between me and my travel companion, also a civil engineer and map collector. We both have thousands of hours of professional experience working with USGS maps, but by the light of the Moon that night we could not agree from what we could see down in that canyon where we were. My friend thought we were further along and a bit of pressing on would result in a hot shower and a comfy hotel bed. I thought we still had some rough terrain in front of us better attempted by light of day. The repeating patterns of the canyon terrain were similar enough and well-enough aligned that a map and compass did not provide insight, at least by moonlight. A GPS, even one reading only lat-long coordinates, would have resolved the issue easily and we would have gotten more sleep. I had one (an early Magellan with vehicle-mounted antenna) the next time we went out.
I am frequently required to drive in major eastern cities to places with which I am not familiar, and having a Garmin navigational system is an imperative. The navigation it does is sometimes wacky; therefore, I check the route for silliness against a map before setting out and never let it override what I know to be a correct route choice. But reading maps while driving in a crowded city is a danger to the driver and to everyone around him--navigation displays have eliminated that problem even if we sometimes see lines of people taking the silly route through some neighborhoods. Nobody can safely read a two-foot by three-foot map while driving a car on, say, the Schuykill Expressway in Philaldelphia.
Early GPS devices only reported coordinates, and were useful tools for those who had maps to go with them (and the skills to locate coordinates on those maps). They were not useful to non-map-readers until they incorporated electronic maps within them. At that time, they were useful only to the extent the maps were accurate. That continues to be a problem. I actually like an iPhone app that I use for day hikes--it uses previously downloaded and stored USGS maps, and lightens my load considerably. But it's only useful for day hikes (which is about all the back-country hiking I do any more) because of battery life. And it can still be defeated by a tree canopy. (And I never depend on it in places where I cannot navigate by dead reckoning.)
Each tool that is available has advantages and disadvantages, and no one tool is perfect for every situation. Anyone who is risking their lives in the back country should decide which tools are appropriate, learn how to use them, and make sure to bring them along. There are times when GPS reveals its usefulness compared to maps and compass, and vice versa. Anyone who says one or the other is useless may be putting themselves are risk in any given situation.
Rick "wondering how many bones of ancient peoples represent the places where they became hopelessly lost" Denney
I've been teaching orienteering to the BSA for over 30 years, never owned a GPS, probably never will. My 13 year old can find her way through most any woods with a topo and her compass. She knows the mountains around here without any help.
Rick Allen
Argentum Aevum
practicing Pastafarian
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