I read the story the SAR guy wrote about the incident with the German tourists.

It was quite an interesting story.

These same reason apply to losing your car at the mall...

All the more reason to practice map and compass skills.

HJ

My Scouts always look at me like I have three heads when I make them do stop along our hikes and look backwards but it just makes sense to me that the more familiar you are with the area, the less likely you are to get lost.

I agree with the necessity to practice navgation skills.
I think the even more import statement was this:

In a parking garage it might mean they have to do a long walk through the decks to find the car, in the wild it simply means they are lost. Good navigation skills usually really means getting into the habit of tracking the environment and having a good mental map. I think the study should have been phrased (or quoted)more accurately. Relying on the GPS is not the same as using it as additional tool.

Some environments are easier to get lost in than others. A dense forest on a cloudy day can be tough, especially compared to mountainous terrain or a deeply incised canyon; there you may be unable to travel because of steep cliffs, etc, but at least you know where you are.

The advice to know map/compass first then GPS is wise and I preach it myself. However there is another truth lurking out there: a lot of map/compass guys don't know how to really leverage a GPS.

You may say that map/compass has served you fine for all these years and you don't need to know how to run a GPS like a scalded ape. But then, musket owners would feel the same way about an M4.

"I've done quite well with my slide rule, why should I care about silicon chips?".

There's deficits on both sides of the argument.

Some slide rules have silicon chips. Sharp made an abacus/electronic calculator hybrid in the early days when people didn't quite trust electronic calculators. "How can it do calculations without gears or some sort of clever mechanical device?" So the abacus provided a bridge for the digital age. If you don't trust the silicon chip, you can double-check its work with the old-fashioned abacus on the right:



Neat, hunh?

The best answer is "both of the above." As a field archaeologist,I had a lot of map and compass experience before GPS came along. In 1991-92, I acquired my first GPS (no map, the size of a brick, lousy battery life, cost $3000), and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Even so, GPS is not perfect - deep canyons and tall buildings can deflect signals and generate inaccuracies, but what an improvement!

I don't mean to disparage a GPS. More than once, I've been very happy someone in my group had one along. But I do try to use brain first and GPS second.

HJ