Hiking with GPS and Maps
My first experience of using a GPS receiver with a map was second-hand (I watched it being used) in the Drakensberg mountains, with a really likable and expert hike leader, who I’ll call Andrew.
We hiked north of the Ndedema gorge, and the rock art along the trail as we descended to the river valley was a joy to behold.
What was really interesting to me was how ineffective a GPS and map could be when it came to hiking comfortably.
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Andrew was very capable and had hiked often before. His leadership was never in dispute, and his choices were also never really questioned. Until we got to a point on the trail and some of the walkers wanted to make a shortcut. All my instincts were roused: I had never seen anyone make a successful shortcut across ground they did not know. A cardinal rule of hiking for me is to never, ever leave the trail. Even in broad daylight. Even with a group 8 strong. I was happy though – the hike was absolutely, thrillingly beautiful. The sky was clear, there was a cool wind blowing (it was autumn) and the grass was singing its greenness. I was surrounded by mountains and I was loving it. So I waited and watched. Andrew and the other short-cutters had a GPS and their maps out. The map scale was quite useful and showed all the contours, the trail and its various meanderings and the peaks nearby. I made sure I got a look at the map – there were multiple, colour copies floating around, and listened in. Let me say that I am no slouch when it comes to abstract reasoning and visualization. I was building plastic scale models at age 7 and I have an engineering degree. I thought I had abstract visualization down pat. Well, the combination of map scale, difficulty in reconciling trail marker points with features on the map and the lack of confidence in GPS resolution down to bare meters made it impossible for us to tell exactly how to orient the map and ourselves. The GPS we had gave only position.
Off we went on the first shortcut. It proved disastrous and very, very difficult hiking – disastrous in that it added distance to our route, instead of taking it away. I have a theory of perceived distance – if one is hiking with a heavy pack, any climbing or descending adds more distance to the perceived route taken than the actual length of the route. The more weight in the pack, the greater the perceived distance. It also seems to be perceived at a body level, and creeps up on the hiker at rest stops.
Well, I was quite annoyed. I had not spoken up and here I was stepping into and out of and over deep brush (thank goodness I had my jeans on). My ankles were constantly turned to the left, since we weren’t walking on the level surface of the trail and the decline was vicious. We made it down to the river valley since we were unable to strike the trail again. Partly because the ground made it hard to walk back to the trail we had left, partly because the guys did not want to walk all the extra distance to get back to the trail. Ego and tired legs. Fume.
So there we were. The river valley was great, but the climb out of it was straight up the side of a mountain. This is never recommended and I have found is generally always required to get back to the trail, unless of course, the group is willing to hike a whole lot of extra distance through brush along more of a contour. I don’t like having to choose between a heart-popping straight-up or down route with less thrashing through brush or an easier route with more brush thrashing. Andrew was quite appreciative later that I didn’t add my contribution to the reams of advice and instructions he got from some of the other hikers. I’ll certainly hike with him again.
We got back to the trail, we sat down to eat (wow, it all tasted so good, as everything seems to, on a hike) and enjoyed the view. The trials of missed trails and murky map reading subsided. Hiking is a window into pure experience and washes it all away. Take it from me, though: stay pure and simple on the trail, and use devices like GPS receivers sparingly until they prove to be useful.