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#101 |
Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,929
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I agree that tech has its pros and cons. But as far as it comes to map use and route following I think it is making us all brain dead. Methinks tech mapping should be used only as a backup tool for most. The people who know how to use map and compass will use technology as a tool not a crutch, until laziness become master of our wiser angels.
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"A culture is no better than its woods." W.H. Auden |
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#102 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Western Adirondacks
Posts: 3,849
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Many here know how I feel about relying solely upon technology vs being proficient with map and compass, which I have taught to outdoor guides and SAR for more than 20 years (and more recently for Homeland Security and NYS Law Enforcement). I actually busted one guide student who sneaked his GPS during a M&C only field navigation exam - he did not get the guide certificate he needed for the job he was applying for. Getting "lost" would not be a failure for any student, instead they get praise and credit for figuring things out.
I have a different kind of personal example. I acquired my first astronomical telescope when I was 12 yrs old. It had setting circles to manually find celestial objects. But they way I really operated it was to learn the stars, their names, and their locations relative to dimmer deep space objects that i sought to view. Later I became a navigator for the Air Force, long before GPS was launched (when the AF actually seriously used navigators in aircraft). In training we had to learn 51 different stars for celestial navigation using a sextant. Guess what, I already knew those and more stars and breezed through that training segment and advanced to become an instructor and flight evaluation navigator. Fast forward to 2017. Still with my old childhood telescope for occasional use, I purchased a new one as I had planned to do for many years. This new one has a motor drive with a hand held device to automatically turn the telescope to any object of interest that is programmed into it. So in using it I soon realized and was dismayed that no longer do I have to remember the bright guide stars that I used to know. I just press a button and there is no need to know or to experience anything else. I don't like doing it that way. My old learned way seems much better and more satisfying. I feel the same way when i navigate in the wilderness with my old map and compass procedures.
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"Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman Last edited by Wldrns; 10-31-2017 at 09:09 PM.. |
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#103 |
I bear therefore I am
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 269
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My apologies for intruding on your lamenting of brain draining technology,
If one is to prevent Darwin's hypothesis, it would take a 21st century "cow bell" for all those entering the backcountry - particularly those who have not proven themselves proficient or experienced. What if DEC required visitors to either purchase or rent an emergency locator beacon or get a backcountry license to have a "priority" status for SAR? (and search for the 'others' when & if resources allow) Just throwing it out there (and hoping it doesn't stick)... On the topic of it's not just ADK and "can't fix stupid" there's an article of 'news' making the rounds about a pair of 'sailors' (in very loose terms) being "lost" at sea for months on end. If nothing else, it's certainly entertaining but quite pointless. The only consolation Coast Guard got is that they deems the ship "not seaworthy" and left it adrift...
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Feverishly avoiding "a steady stream of humanity, with a view that offers little more than butts, boots, elbows and backsides". (description quote from Joe Hackett) |
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#104 |
Mobster
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 969
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#105 | |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Porter Corners, NY
Posts: 797
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Quote:
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#106 |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 155
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Apparently, there will be more to that story. There was apparently a functionally emergency satellite device(EPIRB) on the boat and they didn't trigger it because they "didn't think there lives were in danger". Either given to understatement or their story has more holes in it than their boat.
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#107 | |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: In the mountains
Posts: 595
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Quote:
Awesome solution; thank you for sharing that. Last edited by wiiawiwb; 11-01-2017 at 12:15 AM.. |
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#108 | |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 902
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Quote:
Like all technological advances, there are pros and cons. My commentary was simply a rebuttal to your alleged cons. What I described was based on real world observation of how others use their phones and personal experience.
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#109 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Western Adirondacks
Posts: 3,849
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Folks, they are all just tools. A compass, a map, the sun's shadow, a GPS and its satellites, the creek you use for a navigation handrail or a ridge used as navigation backstop. They are all tools for navigation and location. Some are hardware based, some are software. Some (not the least of which is the wetware tool that exists between your ears), with training and intelligence to use them are programmable (when you turn a compass bezel to an azimuth it is being programmed, and it has a semi-permanent memory of where it is set; when you study a map you are programming your brain). All programming and interpretation of what the tools are telling us is suceptible to error with varying degrees of consequence.
Other tools, such as the natural clues to navigation available almost everywhere, require wetware intelligence best used in conjunction with other tools (such as the map) to interpret and to realize their combined value for efficient travel. Some tools are best utilized and required for specific tasks or jobs demanding exacting precision (bombing a specific target, or surveying, or SAR, or canoe racing on the Yukon River, for example) would not be as possible or effective today without tools such as GPS and the operator's knowledge of how to use them, recognizing the accepted limitations of each. Even then, possibility of mechanical, electronic, programming and mis-interpretation error or failure needs to be taken into account relative to task success and safety. Some people find that certain kinds of reliable tools and knowledge to use them are all that is necessary for tasks involving purely educational or recreational purposes.
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"Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman |
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#110 | |
Kayak-46
![]() Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5,991
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Quote:
I come from a M&C background, have learned many of the intricacies of GPS, combined the two approaches for high-power potency then reverted back (mostly) to M&C for off-trail navigation. Recently, I tried using the gps on my dormant $20 trakphone with a free mapping app for a few hikes, on and off-trail. I was amazed at the accuracy (saved and compared tracklogs), ease of use, myriad ways of exploiting the device, battery life etc. So, I wouldn't knock the technology, it's a freaking juggernaut and it works really well. I was just on a bushwhack hike of North River and Cheney Cobble with TB and he used his phone to navigate with not one but two overlain maps, each semi transparent. I was recording a gps tracklog for future reference and I used a paper map and compass. We used all three nav-aids but the phone was very impressive in terms of keeping track of our position and progress. I personally wouldn't knock (well maybe sometimes I would!) users of "new tech" as some people seem to enjoy doing, (one of those love-to-hate things perhaps). HOWEVER, I certainly would caution people from being totally dependent on any single nav-aid, be it a compass (I had one fall into pieces on me in the Sentinel Range), maps (you can lose them, they can get wet and the lines will smear) GPS units (loss of signal, batteries dying, thing goes kaput) or phones(ditto). The map glitches I mentioned of course are user error/carelessness but I've been there more than once but had backups.
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The best, the most successful adventurer, is the one having the most fun. |
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#111 | |
Moss Hopper
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 231
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Quote:
I see this going three ways: More fees, greater fines, high altitude drone surveillance of high use areas, more rangers policing those areas, and maybe even asking people to show the contents of their hiking gear to make sure they have the proper equipment. The gov't keeps selling our lands like they did this week in Utah but on top of their excuses being that they need to pillage the Earth for its resources, they will say they need to sell off public lands like national parks because it's too dangerous for people to be going there, citing news articles like this one. Only very manicured and heavily patrolled and surveilled parks will be granted access to. People will evolve and come to their senses and become more prepared after several well-publicized articles citing deaths of unprepared hikers trying to get photos or videos for their social media pages. |
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#112 | ||
Kayak-46
![]() Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5,991
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Quote:
Quote:
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The best, the most successful adventurer, is the one having the most fun. |
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#113 |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 1,695
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This is no surprise! Remember (if you are old enough to remember) how we used to easily recall dozens, maybe even hundreds of phone numbers? Now that there are phones that do that for us, many folks have lost that skill...
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#114 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 902
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I honestly can't recall any time in my life when I memorized *hundreds* of phone numbers!
There's a very specific line of work that demands nothing be written down and only committed to memory ... ![]()
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#115 |
Kayak-46
![]() Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5,991
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I can also remember being able to multiply, add and subtract without the use of an electronic device. Unless you consider the brain to be an electronic device.
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The best, the most successful adventurer, is the one having the most fun. |
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