I enjoyed this hugely. My wife and I have used the ordnance survey app for many years now. In the benign Welsh Marches it is great. The consequence of failure is minor. No cliffs to fall off if the weather comes in, no Grimpen Mire to be swallowed by. Nonetheless, we always have a power pack and lead in case one gets delayed and battery runs out. If we were going up to Snowdonia we would ensure we had a paper copy… just as we have other safety kit.
Years ago i dived in Malaysia. I always had a klaxon in BCD airline. Less experienced divers would ask ‘do I need one of those’. Maybe, I would reply. And I did. I dived with an instructor. It seemed benign but as we went down we realised a huge current was running along the bottom. We tried to get behind the shelter of a coral (that works, like a rock in a gale). But we couldn’t make it and we abandoned the dive. We did our safety stop and when we surfaced we were half a mile from the boat. The instructor put up a marker but the boat failed to respond. I blasted. It took three goes. A few days later two divers were in the sea two days because the boat couldn’t find them.
So we take care walking, but we use an app all the time and it’s brilliant.
A little note on ice-steps. My son climbed a 6000m summit in the summer. Last 300m 45 degrees took 3 hours in crampons, hammering in breathes with every step. I bet he was glad not to cut steps!
Quite so with the power pack. And yes, I feel partially naked if I don't have a compass and a map somewhere to hand even though I never use them any more. I have cut about 12 steps in ice in my lifetime- but the pick is a very efficient tool, possibly he might have done better cutting some steps.
I always love reading about your Lake District. The area around Albany, New York has wonderful hiking in every direction, but sometime I wish there weren't so many trees.
Quite so. My son was on prospect mountain, VT last weekend. The name implies there is an extensive view but I think the trees may have grown since then. I did enjoy 4 days in NC but it was an awful lot of trees- I reckon about a million of them!
Very nice! I like to plan my routes on a paper map, but don't often get one out on a hill. Zen navigation also has a lot going for it, but my kids get suspicious if I don't seem to be following a fixed route!
It's a tricky one, this. I love a paper map - have 'em in all sorts of scales and forms. (I've even written about them a bit: https://katejarmstrong.substack.com/p/the-art-of-navigation-in-the-mountains.) For both aesthetic and practical reasons I do my planning on paper (nothing better than a sheaf of OS maps spread across a large table). Often I use them out and about as well. But I do also like the blue dot, especially when it lets me go out in weather I would otherwise have been wary in, or when it lets me take on hairier paper-based nav, safe in the knowledge that I have a technological backup.
Loved this. My first time using a Harvey's map was in the summer of 1977 at a Scottish 6 day orienteering race and I used a number in the following decades. I have a couple area ones in my map box along with plenty of OS maps.
Yes but you can do it on a desktop while switching scales ad lib and measuring as you click while also detecting paths etc actually used. So much as we may dislike, it actually is a jolly useful. At least until your battery goes flat
A good tale delightfully well told and all of which I agree with. I love my maps, tattered though most are, and probably first learnt to use them back in 1953 in Cadets at school. And I still use them- I would feel naked without them.
Conversely if we are ever in doubt we also have and use the app to solve any directional mystery. And very handy it is too. But happily, unlike others we often see, we don’t walk transfixed by the phone in hand lest we deviate from the dotted line.
It seems the app has opened our wild places to many who didn’t previous go whilst at the same time increasing mountain rescue call-outs. So your phone may get you lost but may also save you.
I'm so glad I came across this wonderful read! Little did I know, as an elementary school student visiting the USGS headquarters on our annual field trips there, that I’d one day be working in the world of maps and mapping apps once I moved to the UK. I’ll admit I’m heavily biased toward Harvey Maps, possibly as they feel most familiar in style to the USGS maps, though I would argue Harvey's are far superior!
Maps have a beauty about them, even if they're not used for navigation. I've always enjoyed contour lines, the way they swirl and stretch and contract. And the symbols are like keys to magic and wonder. I think it's because of maps that I enjoyed geography so much at school. And of course, I've had my share of Ordnance Survey maps to help me find new walks to explore. This post captured my attention, Ronald. Thanks for sharing your history of maps.
I enjoyed this hugely. My wife and I have used the ordnance survey app for many years now. In the benign Welsh Marches it is great. The consequence of failure is minor. No cliffs to fall off if the weather comes in, no Grimpen Mire to be swallowed by. Nonetheless, we always have a power pack and lead in case one gets delayed and battery runs out. If we were going up to Snowdonia we would ensure we had a paper copy… just as we have other safety kit.
Years ago i dived in Malaysia. I always had a klaxon in BCD airline. Less experienced divers would ask ‘do I need one of those’. Maybe, I would reply. And I did. I dived with an instructor. It seemed benign but as we went down we realised a huge current was running along the bottom. We tried to get behind the shelter of a coral (that works, like a rock in a gale). But we couldn’t make it and we abandoned the dive. We did our safety stop and when we surfaced we were half a mile from the boat. The instructor put up a marker but the boat failed to respond. I blasted. It took three goes. A few days later two divers were in the sea two days because the boat couldn’t find them.
So we take care walking, but we use an app all the time and it’s brilliant.
A little note on ice-steps. My son climbed a 6000m summit in the summer. Last 300m 45 degrees took 3 hours in crampons, hammering in breathes with every step. I bet he was glad not to cut steps!
Quite so with the power pack. And yes, I feel partially naked if I don't have a compass and a map somewhere to hand even though I never use them any more. I have cut about 12 steps in ice in my lifetime- but the pick is a very efficient tool, possibly he might have done better cutting some steps.
I found out he used the pick on the way down when he slipped! Induced in me even more terror about the whole activity!
Once you've practised it the ice axe self-arrest is actually really reassuring! Like having brakes on your car.
Reassuring. Do not intend to try it!
I always love reading about your Lake District. The area around Albany, New York has wonderful hiking in every direction, but sometime I wish there weren't so many trees.
Quite so. My son was on prospect mountain, VT last weekend. The name implies there is an extensive view but I think the trees may have grown since then. I did enjoy 4 days in NC but it was an awful lot of trees- I reckon about a million of them!
Very nice! I like to plan my routes on a paper map, but don't often get one out on a hill. Zen navigation also has a lot going for it, but my kids get suspicious if I don't seem to be following a fixed route!
It's a tricky one, this. I love a paper map - have 'em in all sorts of scales and forms. (I've even written about them a bit: https://katejarmstrong.substack.com/p/the-art-of-navigation-in-the-mountains.) For both aesthetic and practical reasons I do my planning on paper (nothing better than a sheaf of OS maps spread across a large table). Often I use them out and about as well. But I do also like the blue dot, especially when it lets me go out in weather I would otherwise have been wary in, or when it lets me take on hairier paper-based nav, safe in the knowledge that I have a technological backup.
Loved this. My first time using a Harvey's map was in the summer of 1977 at a Scottish 6 day orienteering race and I used a number in the following decades. I have a couple area ones in my map box along with plenty of OS maps.
They are so good, aren't they. Apart from the skye one which is simply indispensable
Got to agree with the one inch being the pinnacle of design/useability (no pun intended)
The OS app is great for knowing where you are in a forest, but you just can't read the thing like a paper version.
Sat here looking at two of my old Dartmoor maps pinned to the wall , making one large and very visible spread, of the whole of Dartmoor.
Sacrilegiously they are also covered in sharpie pen marks indicating routes taken, and area to avoid.
Makes planning a doddle.
Try doing that on an app without a lot of technical time hours
Yes but you can do it on a desktop while switching scales ad lib and measuring as you click while also detecting paths etc actually used. So much as we may dislike, it actually is a jolly useful. At least until your battery goes flat
A good tale delightfully well told and all of which I agree with. I love my maps, tattered though most are, and probably first learnt to use them back in 1953 in Cadets at school. And I still use them- I would feel naked without them.
Conversely if we are ever in doubt we also have and use the app to solve any directional mystery. And very handy it is too. But happily, unlike others we often see, we don’t walk transfixed by the phone in hand lest we deviate from the dotted line.
It seems the app has opened our wild places to many who didn’t previous go whilst at the same time increasing mountain rescue call-outs. So your phone may get you lost but may also save you.
I'm so glad I came across this wonderful read! Little did I know, as an elementary school student visiting the USGS headquarters on our annual field trips there, that I’d one day be working in the world of maps and mapping apps once I moved to the UK. I’ll admit I’m heavily biased toward Harvey Maps, possibly as they feel most familiar in style to the USGS maps, though I would argue Harvey's are far superior!
They're made by hillwalkers and orienteers. Based in Perthshire I know them a bit. Expensive to get onto phone though.
Maps have a beauty about them, even if they're not used for navigation. I've always enjoyed contour lines, the way they swirl and stretch and contract. And the symbols are like keys to magic and wonder. I think it's because of maps that I enjoyed geography so much at school. And of course, I've had my share of Ordnance Survey maps to help me find new walks to explore. This post captured my attention, Ronald. Thanks for sharing your history of maps.