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Thread: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

  1. #41

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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Heroique View Post
    I think the forest service should superimpose a skull & crossbones over this area for cross-country, traditional-compass hikers.

    Unless they’re as good as Vaughn at reading the sun and terrain (post #11). ;^)

    But even if you get lost, 9 of the “10 essentials” still might save you in this Devil’s Triangle area of the woods.
    If you can read a map, and are somewhat observant, and have most of your faculties, you won't need a compass.

    There's a deal of iron ore scattered around here - the High Peaks of the Adirondaks - so I learned long ago to take anything a compass says with a truckload of salt.
    One man's Mede is another man's Persian.

  2. #42
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Even in the High Sierra there are significant areas of complex iron-rich "roof pendant" geology which will drive a compass batty. GPS units aren't totally reliable either, esp in a
    really bad storm (and are obviously battery dependent). But I'm wired more like a squirrel
    and subconsciously memorize topographic features. Guess that comes from being raised
    with huge tracts of steep wilderness right across the road. Leave the driveway and enter
    the second deepest canyon on the continent. Rarely even use the map. Those things
    are more useful for learning the names of distant peaks etc.

  3. #43

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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    adequate footwear/gear for plausible conditions
    appropriate preparedness


    a jet pack would be great in many possible circumstances but
    a signaling mirror? cmon
    that's going too far



    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    A few years back when we had unusually heavy snow in early Oct virtually every high country rescue was due to inadequate footwear - folks hiking back in those glorified tennis
    shoes they sell at REI etc - allegedly waterproof with Goretex linings etc but utterly worthless in even two inches of fresh snow. My own feet are so messed up from birth that
    I have to wear good boots even for daily wear, and expensive custom boots for hiking.
    But good boots are worth it in general, and can be life-saving in a mtn storm, or save you
    a broken ankle in steep terrain. The difference between fun and suicide can sometimes
    simply be a matter of planning and gear. The weather can change incredibly fast up in the
    hills.

  4. #44

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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Heroique View Post
    You’re not going to share any exciting details? Did it start raining?
    True life saving - as in, I would have died had I not had a compass - has happened twice in Ben Nevis blizzards, and once on the Eiger. That last sounds super-dramatic, but in fact we'd taken the easy way up, and towards the summit it turns into a maze of little steep paths, some of which can lead you badly wrong when descending in cloud.

    The Ben is different. It's a bit like I understand the White Mountains in NH to be - you treat them with respect, even in benign conditions. I wrote about my first time here:

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.c...bb2e26db76de6?

    The second time was also on Tower Ridge, but with a long-standing climbing partner who I could trust and rely upon. We had a blast, grinning goodbye to a group of special forces soldiers on exercise as they sensibly bottled out, letting go with our hands on the steepest sections and allowing the wind to plaster us to the rock as we traversed, and emerging on top into the most complete sensory-deprivation whiteout I have ever experienced. Visibility was one yard, with a wind that erased communication beyond one foot. We paced off the distances and bearings, with Ian out in front and me with my compass laid on the rope, tugging once for right and twice for left. We had great fun - truly - but other climbers died that night, several in the avalanche-prone gully that snares you if you don't get the bearings right.

  5. #45
    Land-Scapegrace Heroique's Avatar
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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    And Struan’s “Ben Nevis” key lesson for our purposes:

    “...all those things I had lugged around and never used, I used.
    Spare clothing, food and drink all made a small but vital difference; in
    Paul's case the bivvi gear too. When people laugh at me for always
    carrying a bivvi bag in winter, no matter how trivial the route, I remind
    myself of my reasons and shrug it off. I'm just grateful the first aid
    kit was superfluous...”

    You don’t need an “essential” until you need it.

  6. #46
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    If you can read a map, and are somewhat observant, and have most of your faculties, you won't need a compass.

    There's a deal of iron ore scattered around here - the High Peaks of the Adirondaks - so I learned long ago to take anything a compass says with a truckload of salt.
    Clearly this person has never been in the wilderness for any significant length of time and probably has never traveled far from home. Reminds me of “Miss Marie” who had never been outside the city limits of her home town.

    As a quick example of the kind of information a compass is able to tell the savvy:

    Suppose you know what the true magnetic declination of a given area is suppose to be and further suppose that you line yourself up with an object/landmark that your map shows to be directly true north of where you are standing. Then,

    Let X be the true magnetic declination and Y be the declination that your compass says the landmark is. Then the absolute value of Y-X is the strength of the local magnetic field (e.g., your iron ore) and the position along the real number line indicates the direction of the field (east or west).

    It's a serious error of judgment to travel even for short distances in the wilderness without at least a compass and preferably a map as well.

    Thomas

  7. #47

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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Heroique View Post
    Yep (why did you think they aren’t?)
    Mostly because of this statment "be sure to check your area’s magnetic declination".

    If you orient based on the magnetic north line, then no need to factor in declination.

  8. #48
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Yep. The only reason why millenia of native Americans never traveled with a compass is
    because Amazon.com would deliver a GPS unit right to their bark hut. They also had the
    ability to download maps from the USGS right onto their inkjet printers. John Muir preferred to travel light si would stop at the nearest Mini Mart to ask directions, at least until he had
    a GPS of his own. Whatever happened to, "the moss grows on the north side of the tree"?
    Maybe they don't sell moss anymore since Kodak raised the prices.

  9. #49

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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by tgtaylor View Post
    Magnetic Declination changes over time and it's a good practice to check the current declination tiwh the USGS online. Once, while on a bicycle trip to Greece and Crete, I forgot to check the declination for Greece and asked the pilot who was standing at the exit door wishing everyone a good trip. He didn't know but went inside the cockpit to check and came back and told me it was 2 degrees west IIRC.

    Thomas
    Ignoring the poles, most places on this planet will change less than 2 degrees over the course of a lifetime. And 2 degrees is probably less than the error in my sighting ability. So its not something I care to worry about, and has never proven to be a factor in the real world. Besides, when I reach a point with visibility, I corroborate my compass bearing with what I see on the topo map and in front of me, and adjust as necessary.

    Plus there are other corrective measures that are utilized in the real world. Such as we know that when summiting a peak, we need to keep going up until we summit. Or we know that certain features, such ridges, valleys, knobs, and streams are indicators that we are on or off course. Ridge lines and valleys are often the easiest lines to follow and are the surest way to get from point A to point B, minimizing the need to be super accurate with the compass. Here in the northeast, we don't get that many opportunities to visually corroborate over long views. But I have not been lost despite many bushwhacks through dense forest (which prevents sighting more than a few feet ahead, or visually corroborating).

  10. #50
    Drew Bedo's Avatar
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    Re: Landscape hikers – “10 essentials” or not?

    Read "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. You will never leave your font porch without everything on the list. Some days, you won't go out he front door.

    Seriously: its a great book. His analysis of how people get "lost" is profound. As someone who is visually impaired, I found this information alone to be helpful every day.
    Drew Bedo
    www.quietlightphoto.com
    http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo




    There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!

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