Navigational Error Recovery

Navigational Error Recovery is an important skill that involves first recognizing that you are not where you want to be.

Q: But how?
A: The features around you do not align with those on the map.

Q: What map?
A: The one you should have brought.

Q: Oh.
A: Go home and get one then. We'll wait here.

Q: Mmmm. First tell me more. I'll have to think about it.
A: You recover by identifying the features around you and pinpointing your exact map position. So easy!

Q: Ungh.
A: But every situation is different.

Q: Seriously?
A: Yes, and since every situation is different, each new situation requires a different recovery method.

Q: Mrrrph.
A: First you backtrack to a previous feature you can identify, stand still, look all around, and piece together a mental picture of the terrain by comparing what you see to what your map shows that you ought to see.

Q: Identify it how?
A: Or if you can't do that, continue walking, hoping to come to a new identifiable feature.

Q: And get more lost?
A: Right! Maybe! Even experts get disorientated, some of them on nearly every trip, but the ability to recognize early on that you have a problem, when it can still be fixed, is the sign of an expert, so not to worry. Being lost can be fun too.

Q: Can I be a living expert who keeps on living?
A: Ideally. That's mostly the point. Not everyone can quite manage it though, sadly.

Q: So how often do I have to do this?
A: Keep in mind that this is something you will need to do often because on every trip there is a slight disorientation at every stage.

Q: For real?
A: Yep. Now get lost.

 

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See tabs at the top for definitions and books.
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+eff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Can't find my pants. Again?

Mo Apps

 

I recently found more info.

 

BackCountry Navigator An Android GPS app that runs on both Android smartphones and tablets.  Currently ranked top among all paid apps in the Travel and Local category.  Visit site  ▷

MapOut Offline map for hiking, biking or as city map.  Covering the whole world.  Visit site  ▷

ViewRanger USA Trails Guides & Maps for Hiking, Camping & Cycling.  Plan, navigate and share your adventures.  Visit site  ▷

Komoot Better Planning and Navigation for Hikers and Bikers.  From the deepest dirt track to the highest hiking trail.  Visit site  ▷

OsmAnd Offline Mobile Maps and Navigation.  Global Mobile Map Viewing and Navigation.  Visit site  ▷

 

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Remember, Effort or Effit, and peace be upon you then, and dust be off you, if you can manage it.
Have something to add? Send email to sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
See if that helps.

Maps Apps Guides

No, I don't know how to use most of the information presented here, yet.

I do have a so-called "smartphone" now, but I can barely figure out how to keep it from locking me out every time I sit down and try to remember how to make a call to someone I don't want to talk to anyway.

The good news is that the phone works, and across international boundaries, and aside from the $26-and-change I pay monthly to keep it alive, it works with just about any cell network, and it works at no cost with any available wifi network, and I've got wifi included with my rent at my apartment in Ecuador, so I have communications when I need them, for cheap, but the rest of the "phone's" capabilities are still a mystery. (Google Fi)

I realize that these gizmos can do a whole bunch more than make calls, and will get to those features eventually. It's a huge block of utility waiting to be of service.

One thing that's annoyed me in recent years is that there are no decent maps available for many places I've wanted to go.

Sometimes there is a map to be found here or there, but actually getting an actual map can actually be an exercise in futility.

When I say "map", I mean a printed one. I'm still there, with print, and paper is fine, though print on plastic is usually better. Electronics are space age, and can be stunningly informative, but I prefer to live without batteries when possible, which means that my gold standard is still print.

But, but, but...

Try getting a decent map of the Hell's Canyon area. Submit an order and wait three weeks, then end up with something with features identified in 2-point type, and trails shown as sub-hairline dashes printed in vague red on a confusing background of greens and browns and rat's nests of contour lines.

I don't see red well, but am lucky to be nearsighted, since now that I'm old enough so I can't bring small print into focus without a magnifier, I can just take off my glasses and put my eyeball about three inches from what I want to read. Fine and dandy. But there is still too much dense detail in many printed maps, and they are often 10 to 15 years out of date anyway.

And then there are those maps you "can print out at home". Ya-sure. Print out at home, just like that. Ready-doodle-doo. Got a color printer, do ya? Me neither.

I did once find got one of these maps for the Blue Mountains of southeast Washington / northeast Oregon, and was able to print out at the shop that sold the maps. That was kinda OK, considering that it was the only map I could find, but...

The map was fuzzy. Everything was indistinct. It was nearly impossible to read, both text and landscape features. Blurry. But it was the only map available, so I was glad to have it.

If I'm ever going to do more of this outdoor stuff I need to get some mobile going, like it or not. It's better than a lot of the printed maps now, and I'm feeling lame.

With that in mind I started a list of resources, some of which are printed maps or guidebooks, still the best bet overall, but I gotta get up to date on the new stuff. Gotta. So this is the start of that list.

In no particular order, here is what I've found so far...

 

 

sectionhiker.com GPS-Enabled Trail Guide Apps vs General Purpose GPS Navigation Apps.  Visit site  ▷

sectionhiker.com How to Blog on the Appalachian Trail: Apps, Devices, Battery Charger, and Internet Connectivity.  Visit site  ▷

sectionhiker.com Introduction to Map Layers for Backcountry Navigation.  Visit site  ▷

sectionhiker.com GPS Navigation with PDF Maps on Smartphones.  Visit site  ▷

sectionhiker.com The Digital Map Conundrum.  Visit site  ▷

sectionhiker.com Maplets - The Offline Map App with GPS.  Visit site  ▷

Caltopo Backcountry Mapping Evolved.  Visit site  ▷

Atlas Guides Apps made for adventure.  Visit site  ▷

Halfmile's PCT Maps Pacific Crest Trail Maps, Apps, GPS Data & More.  Visit site  ▷

REI Camping and Hiking Guidebooks.  Visit site  ▷

DelormeAmazon.com: Delorme (a.k.a., Garmin International).  Visit site  ▷

Amazon.com: Trails Illustrated Maps, Books.  Visit site  ▷

Gaia GPS Hiking Trail Maps, Hunting Units, 4x4 Offroad App.  Visit site  ▷

andrewskurka.com Just released: CalTopo app for Android.  Visit site  ▷

andrewskurka.com Suunto Ambit3 vs. Garmin Fenix 5 || Core differences + ideal uses.  Visit site  ▷

andrewskurka.com The future of CalTopo || Interview with founder Matt Jacobs.  Visit site  ▷

andrewskurka.com Essential backpacking topo maps: types, sources & formats.  Visit site  ▷

andrewskurka.com Characteristics of an expert navigator: Part I - Equipped with proper tools.  Visit site  ▷

adventurealan.com Backpacking Navigation & GPS.  Visit site  ▷

adventurealan.com How to use your Smartphone as the Best Backpacking GPS.  Visit site  ▷

adventurealan.com Huge Improvements to Next Gen Gaia GPS Hiking App.  Visit site  ▷

adventurealan.com Best Lightweight Backpacking Electronics Gear.  Visit site  ▷

adventurealan.com 2019 Best Satellite Messengers — SOS Devices.  Visit site  ▷

Hiking Project Hiking Trail Maps.  Visit site  ▷

MyTopo Custom Topographic Maps and Aerial Maps for the USA & Canada.  Visit site  ▷

Maps for Good Connecting people with places.  Visit site  ▷

Google My Maps Apps on Google Play.  Visit site  ▷

 

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Me? Currently making the transition from old creepy guy to creepy old guy.
Have something to add? Send email to sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
See if that helps.
As always, Effort or Eff it. No sniveling.

Definitions: Confluence

Remember what you do if you find a fork in the road? The same thing you do if you find a box full of hundred-dollar bills: You take it.

Likewise, you might be hiking along, happy as a fly on a tuna-salad sandwich, and there you are, face to face with a stream. Worse, a confluence of streams. Even worse yet, a confluence of two equal-sized streams. This is a fork, and if you are a dummy, then you are "forked". Officially-speaking.

So then what?

Time for lunch!

Sit down, shoo the flies off your food, eat, think about it and see if things get better while you wait. In case they don't, remember that no matter what else happens, you're still going to die, and that maybe today is your day. You know? Maybe today. It could be worse.

At least you're out in the woods where everything is all clean and pure and where there's no sound except the flowing water some fly buzzing and a little faint whimpering. (From you, of course.) Hey — not completely terrible. We all snivel from time to time, and at least no one can hear you, or see that funny face you make when you cry. So there's that.

And if you don't die right now, right away, you can kill time (literally, for once) by thinking. By thinking about what a confluence is, by remembering that a confluence is a meeting of streams — usually two streams, but maybe more — that a confluence is a meeting of streams at the place where they flow into each other, which is how streams do it.

So if you're still not dead yet, then try walking some more. That might be enough. Or try to get across these here streams. To do that? To cross? Go detouring upstream and take them one at a time, since each stream is smaller by itself than the combined flow after the streams have joined together. Maybe.

Unless this is the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, in which case a larger detour is in order. Unless you want to die right away, but there's no hurry for that. Death will get you when it wants you, no rush. This isn't so bad then, the detour thing. In case you were hiking in the Rockies or the Cascades, you're probably several hundred miles off course by now anyway, so enjoy it, enjoy your detour. See the country.

Stop for supper somewhere nice. Then float downstream and maybe take in Mardi Gras, and continue, and see what happens after that. Sluice. Just sluice it, sluice along, get nice and sluicy. Flow together with the waters as the waters do flow. Even a dummy can do that so it should be easy for you.

Definitions: Data Book

Facts.

A data book is a collection of largely useless facts and numbers, fascinating to those stomping around in the middle of nowhere, or, for the less adventurous, one of the places right next to nowhere.

Those who happen to be doing that very thing because they want to. And are curious to have facts with them. On their way from one arbitrary line on a map to some other arbitrary whatever. For some reason. Or other.

Well, OK.

To them, these stompers, these gritty shufflers, these backpackers, these thru-hikers, to them all facts are useful. Even facts detailing the locations and peculiarities of resupply stops and where said stops used to be. Unless they are no longer, any more, because the place silently dried up and the wind caught it by one corner and and blew it off the map on a dry, overcast, empty dead Thursday.

Even facts, getting back to facts, that state mileage between any two random, boring points on the trail ... are important ... to backpackers ... who have ... nothing ... else to, uh ... think about.

How cool is that then? How? Think.

Even facts. More facts. About how. Steep. The trail gets. And where exactly that happens. That happens. Steep. And where shelters and camp sites are. Road crossings. Water sources. Various facilities. Various. And major features. Features. Major ones.

Major features, whatever major features are, like those stores that sell only gasoline, whiskey, and moth balls? And ammo? Some of them? But apparently remain relevant to long distance hikers who need something to think about, to keep them from going nuts and gnawing off a leg. Even more nuts. Which would make it tough to keep walking. Though more interesting, in a way, due to the challenge though.

Which is another fact, if you will. Which is why data books were invented, to carry around facts. And are still popular among the challenged. Thru-hikers. Challenged in many ways, they.

Like the data book for the Appalachian Trail, a data book published for over 25 years now, and one or more for the Pacific Crest Trail, and so on and so on, for trails all over. The place. Of which there are oh, so many. So many. Trails and places that need facts to be put into books and carried. Another fact.

Go figure, etc.

Definitions: Cell

This is another one of those navigation terms.

A cell is a box. A cell seems nice because it is a box of your own choosing that in turn defines you.

A cell keeps you thinking inside the box, where it's all warm and tidy and you have your food and nest and your water bottle and nothing ever changes except that eventually you find that you've gotten old and you can't hardly get around anymore and one day this giant hand comes in from the top and lifts you up and carries you through a vast space into another vast but somewhat smaller space where you are dropped into a gigantic white thing that has lots of water in it and then you get flushed and that's it for you, kid.

But if you have escaped somehow and made it out into the country far, far away, and want to sort of keep that box idea handy because it still makes you feel safe somehow, then you can turn it into a virtual box and use it for navigation.

This is good because the word virtual is really trendy now and can help you pretend that you're not all that old and/or stupid after all. (Or half as ugly as you really are.)

A cell is a virtual box in your mind, which is where a lot of people would prefer you to stay, given the choice. If you're an artsy type, then you can call this virtual box a conceptual box and feel extra smug, but it's all the same. Really. All of it.

This virtual box's walls are streams, ridge lines, roads, trails, fences, fields and so on. Real landscape features, but you decide which ones you're going to pay attention to.

Here's how it's done: First you make a box in your mind and then you walk inside it for real.

As long as you don't walk through one of your imaginary walls you know roughly where you are by relating the cell (your virtual box) to your map (your virtual landscape) to the world (the real landscape).

When you cross a cell boundary (by walking through a virtual wall) then it's time to define the next cell using the next set of identifiable features you see, and continue to maintain a sense of where you are.

Breaking the landscape down into smaller sets of features like this makes it easier to keep track of where you are and simultaneously makes it harder to get lost.

Until you see that giant hand descending toward you.

And then there isn't too much you can really do except to pee on it one last time.

Walk This Way

Keep your gimbals lubed and you'll do fine.

Essentials for Wilderness Survival, Part 6: A compass — couldn't hurt, could it?

First, before you can get any help out of a compass, you have to know what one is. A compass is a thing with parts. But even before parts were invented, there was geomancy.

Geomancy sounds fancy but it was only an early way of trying to get home after slipping into the woods to do some business. Sure, go laugh, but in the olden days most of the world was deep creepy forest all full of beasts and worse stuff and civilization hadn't been invented yet either, so going out of sight was like taking two steps and then boom, you know, you were surrounded by eighteen or more varieties of spooky stuff and there was this weird scratching noise over there behind a rock, and that random howling that seemed to go on forever.

Given that, and you were only out there to maybe empty your bladder and skedaddle back home to snuggle in for the night, you wanted to be sure you'd get back, even though life then was nasty, brutish, and short, and included a lot of fleas and stinky things, and unsalted rutabaga sandwiches was all anyone had to eat (raw).

So they tried geomancy because they had dirt, and that was all it needed. You'd look at little scratchmarks here and there, or toss a handful up in the air to see if anything interesting happened, and then head off. All too often it didn't get interesting, unless you got devoured.

In other words, things did not work that well.

Then someone put a fridge magnet on a stick, which was OK as far as it went, but so what? Who's going to stake their life on what some fridge magnet is doing when there's lots of dirt all over and it gives the same answer? So that idea languished for quite some time until this one guy bought the idea of North from a couple of ancient out-of-work Chinese Fung Masters who needed a few coins for beer money one evening.

The Chinese guys already knew all about compasses and how to use them to get cat hair off the sofa and figure out which direction South was, but that was partly why they kept going off the map and bumping their heads, and why they always had cat hair on their sofas no matter how much they carried on with that fung business.

North however, turned out to be a really good deal.

People got excited about North, went all over, shared it far and wide, painted a little red N on every stick-mounted fridge magnet they had, and before long one of them boldly used his to chase off in a boat before ramming an island in the Caribbean and proclaiming that he'd found Japan. You probably heard of him.

Think what this technology can do for you now that it's been perfected.

If you ever needed a gizmo that pointed at stuff, then a compass would be a good bet. Compasses now have precision parts and are quite technical to boot. The most important part of any compass is, of course, the Direction-of-Travel Arrow. Every decent compass has one. To use the Direction-of-Travel Arrow, first point it the way you need to travel, and then go there. The more often you do it, the better you get to be.

As you stomp around following your arrow, the Dial Ring acts to provide a fine-tuning option. This allows for either minor or major course corrections, achieved by rotating a thing called the Housing. Doing this makes you change direction, but you only need to recalibrate like this if the Direction-of-Travel Arrow sends you walking into a bog, a fen, a marsh, a swamp, or possibly an unpleasant shrubbery.

Some high-end compasses also have a built-in magnifier which helps in noticing those small details, in case you have trouble recognizing landmarks along the way.

The original fridge magnet? Long gone. Now they use a Needle. This is a magnetized and sharpened piece of metal that pokes into alternate dimensions as you go, always searching for the Way. (Known to the Chinese as the D'oh! — possibly a holdover from ancient Fung rituals, you think?) The Needle, however, and the Direction-of-Travel Arrow don't always get along. In fact, almost never. They frequently disagree. Sometimes they fight. You should be prepared for this. Keep your Third Eye open.

Other compass tips:

• Buy a good map (One with squiggly colored lines.)
• Magnetic deviation is illegal (In every country except Texas.)
• Walk in circles (To become familiar with your surroundings.)
• Practice (Don't stay a Magnetic Dip forever.)
• Don't get lost (Should be Step One, shouldn't it?)
• Follow a bearing (Usually recognizable by the fur, but look out for mama.)
• Memorize the Cardinal Directions (Don't know what Protestants do with this one.)
• Drink beer (Makes you feel good during times of stress.)