I grew up learning how to read maps. (Amazing but true: there are a large number of people who are incapable of reading a highway map, let alone a topo. I've met a lot of them.) For me, navigating by map and compass seems so ordinary and simple, I can't imagine not being able to!

For me, the advent of GPS technology wasn't all that earth-shattering. What I use it for is to provide me a means to plot my exact location on my map, and then it gets shut off. The more important thing, to me, is the little UTM grid tool! How did I do without that for so long?!?

I've not really found a use for the breadcrumb and map features on a GPS; perhaps I'm missing something? It just seems easier to look at my map to see where I've been!

The major downfall I see with the map-enabled GPS is the lack of context. Yes, you can zoom in to take a look at map detail, but the small screen means that you can't see the layout of the land; you can't see the ridge between you and the destination, and it's difficult to derive meaningful distance references. I can look at a quad, and tell "that's about an hour walk", but with a GPS, that ability is lost. Without knowing the scale at which the zoom is displayed, and without being able to see the likely path, I can understand how people equipped only with a GPS are able to get lost.

Regarding DeLorme atlases, my experience with the Oregon edition is that it's terribly inaccurate, showing roads that aren't there and sometimes not showing roads that are. I've found the Benchmark atlas, at least for this state, to be better in that regard. It's also a much better choice for non-map-savvy people (like my wife), because it shows terrain features in shaded relief which is much clearer than the DeLorme.

-=[ Grant ]=-