Pet peeve: over-simplified park maps.

I am rarely lost, though occasionally it takes me a while to be sure I am found. When exploring a new area, over-simplified park maps that fail to include all the trails or paths, and do not include landmarks, frequently cause me to feel less than found.

If I am seriously exploring I have topographic maps, a GPS, and a compass - and often some aerial photos. But when casually popping in to check out a park, I usually do not deploy all the resources. It is not serious but it is annoying!

I feel better now.

It is a deliberate misconspiracy, purposefully unintended to confuse us!

Something to keep in mind is that every map, no matter what scale, no matter what theme, is wrong. Every single map. But you have the recipe for success: Being able to cross-reference multiple resources.

Recommended reading: Monmonier's "How To Lie With Maps"

Also, some public-use maps are intentionally less-than-correct (by omission) in order to protect archeological resources, let over-used areas and trails recover, etc... With this in mind, never get rid of an older edition map.

Um, well, sometimes yeah (see previous post).

Totally down with symbolic representations like maps not matching the reality they depict and therefore being "wrong" by definition. Also good with deliberately leaving some stuff off a map as a protective measure. But ....

The last time all I wanted was to check out the riverfront beach as a possible float trip take-out spot, and there were well-beaten trails identical in size, with no signs, where there was no indication of forks in the trail on the map. Grrr!

Solved by dead reckoning, noting sun position, and doing a little unplanned trail running. I annotated the map for future reference, but really ...!

I've been reading through the make your own gps maps sites trying to find a simple easy procedure to convert a the pdf map I downloaded into a garmin map. I find it annoying to have to pull out the paper map to compare against the gps map to find things on the paper map.

You've brought up an important point - there is no substitute for ground truthing! Such as when cliffs lie between the topo contours...



And you proved that you up to the task..."equipped to navigate" as it were. As an old boss used to tell me, "never miss the opportunity to train."

It is very true that maps are not always the reality.
Sometimes they are not even close.
(and I kind of miss the clouded areas with the "Here There Be Monsters." caption that used to appear on really old charts)

Tourist maps for small parks are about the worst to work with and sometimes it is worth drawing your own instead. It seems a lot of them were drawn on the backs of napkins by the student help after a hard night of partying and based on vague sketch the park maintenance foreman made for the students.
The ones that are actually to scale were likely from the landscaper's plans and represent the installation as planned instead of the installation as built.
Then there is the question of when the map was drawn and what has changed since then.

So yeah, never totally trust any map.

Some of the "not to scale" maps are almost cartoon-like. You'd need to be crazy to try navigating (staying found) with one.

I'm certain that those silly park maps are designed to give the local SAR groups some training exercises.

I followed one of those maps from a parking area to get to a lake. I didn't find the lake, so I retraced my steps to the parking lot, then started out again. Never did find the lake. Darned local riffraff! Stole the whole lake!

Sue