Do You Really Need Topo/aerial Maps?

[+as77]

Reading the forums, it seems that many people love to have topo/aerial maps of the areas they are caching in.

 

I somehow feel the opposite. Exploring an unknown area without any maps, just with a non-mapping GPSr is much more fun than having a detailed map and walking straight to the cache on the optimum route. (I'm talking about the hiking part, not the driving part.) So I think people who use topo maps miss much of the fun and the adventure. Without a map, you could bushwhack a lot, cross creeks, climb up and down steep hillsides, maybe you will have to turn around several times. With a topo or aerial map, you will probably just take an easy trail and rush to the cache in five minutes. But what's the point?

[+Team DEMP]

With Topo maps, I do a lot of going up and down hills between caches. It's a tool some of us use, just like a GPS. WHy use a GPS and not just a compass? Wouldn't it be more fun (as you put it) using a compass to do what we do?

 

I don't understand how a topo makes you take an easy trail vs a hard trail. I usually take the most direct point (hopefully via a trail) between where I am and where I want to go.

 

And if I can, as you wrote, take an easy trail to the cache in 5 minutes, I'd say the point of you taking a harder trail for longer is what might be the question.

 

And before you think it's a dash-and-cache guy, I hiked 28.75 miles this weekend. On Sunday it was 15.5 miles for 3 caches and 1 DNF. I use a GPS, a trail map and I have topo on my GPS.

[CoyoteRed]

Don't go trying to define "fun" for others. You will fail.

[+welch]

The point is to have fun.

 

If you have fun trying to find the right place, the right path, etc etc on your own, then do it that way.

 

Others want some idea of what will be encountered. I would prefer to know if there are MAJOR obsticals in the way (like rivers, gorges or cliffs).

Making a 3/4mi hike into a 3 mile hilly terrain, swim the river only to find out theres private property in the way of the route I was trying to use, doesn't seem very fun to me. No, I don't view maps for every cache I visit, actually most I do not, but I can see very well why you would want to!

[+rusty_tlc]

I just love maps. It was one of the things that got me interested in GPS technology which lead me, inevitably, to geocaching.

[+GentleWhisper]

I ususally take a 3 year old and a 2 year old with me when I go caching... that makes even a flat well mowed field an adventure.

 

I can't drag them up too many hills back and forth in the woods. I do use maps to find the easiest trail to the cache... so just caching together is fun enough, we don't need broken limbs, whiney babies or heat stroke to go with it.

[+as77]

I don't understand the compass question. You cannot determine the lat/lon with a compass.

 

In my view, the real challenge in geocaching is that you are given a pair of coordinates and a gpsr that tells you where you are, and that is all info you've got. If you have a detailed map and the cache is indicated on the map then what's the point? You don't even need a gpsr.

[+Team DEMP]

I don't understand the compass question. You cannot determine the lat/lon with a compass.

 

In my view, the real challenge in geocaching is that you are given a pair of coordinates and a gpsr that tells you where you are, and that is all info you've got. If you have a detailed map and the cache is indicated on the map then what's the point? You don't even need a gpsr.

I guess before a GPS you could never get to a specific point using a compass?

 

As for having a map and knowing where it is... how about I give you a map with an X on it and you find the cache.

[+as77]

I don't think a compass would be enough. Before geocaching, there was no such thing as "compass-caching".

 

There are people who don't use a gpsr for geocaching, just a map with an X on it. So that is certainly possible. Of course, success strongly depends on the scale of the map.

[CoyoteRed]

Um, I thinking that would be called "Letterboxing."

[+as77]

Letterboxing is done using clues and detailed descriptions of how to get to the place. It's a different story.

[+welch]

I don't understand the compass question. You cannot determine the lat/lon with a compass.

 

In my view, the real challenge in geocaching is that you are given a pair of coordinates and a gpsr that tells you where you are, and that is all info you've got. If you have a detailed map and the cache is indicated on the map then what's the point? You don't even need a gpsr.

Somehow there probably is a way to figure out your lat/lon with a compass and a map. But thats not nessecery, all you really need to know is the distance and direction the cache (then you go in that direction the determined distance and tada! your at the cache's area). You could even do that multiple times and travel a course, ie orienteering.

 

It thats the way you like to do it, then do it way .

Oh, and gps receiver or not, compass or not, trained blood hound or not, and with or without the aid or any other tool you choose to bring you still have to find that all important cache and the logbook contained inside.

[CoyoteRed]

Letterboxing is done using clues and detailed descriptions of how to get to the place. It's a different story.

It's all clues. How much detail is up to the clue writer.

 

A map with an X on it is a perfectly good letterbox clue.

[dampeoples]

Do we really even need anything more than an area to look in?

I found a cache yesterday 4 ft up a rock wall on Falls Lake in Raleigh, NC, close to Lower Barton Creek. It was fun, you should try it

[+geobernd]

For me the topo maps on the GPS are very useful - but I also always carry paper maps. I love to bushwack when caching - but there are a lot of steep cliffs etc. in the area - and I don't like to have to backtrack 1/2 mile or more to figure out how to get around them - so the contour lines are great - I can figure out a bushwack 'trail' for myself while I am walking. With the paper map alone I cannot be 100% sure where I am if I am 2-3 miles of a regular trail...

[+zenner]

I find that "side-trips" are just as interesting--if not more so--than locating the cache. In many ways, looking for a cache is the side-show...but finding a new park or interesting site that has nothing to do with the cache is the main attraction. Topographic maps are useful to point out areas of interest that may be nearby...some old RR right of way, or a pond, a small cemetery, or whatever. Go blindly into an area, and you're likely to miss these. Aerial maps don't provide this info (relatively speaking)--tree cover may hide points of interest, for example.

 

-Hal

[+as77]

That's a good point. However, part of what I expect of a cache that it shows me the interesting places in the area. If I can find the cache while missing the interesting places then that cache is badly placed. I consider a cache as a guide for me that helps find the worthwhile places.

[+The Jester]

I don't think a compass would be enough. Before geocaching, there was no such thing as "compass-caching".

 

There are people who don't use a gpsr for geocaching, just a map with an X on it. So that is certainly possible. Of course, success strongly depends on the scale of the map.

Yes there was, only it was (and still is) called "orienteering".

 

Depending on the program (computer maps), a topo map doesn't show the 'easiest' trail all that often. I use the NG Topo! program and most of the maps have very out-of-date trails - the detail maps of the North Cascades don't even show Hwy 20, and it's been around 20 years or so. I use it to work out the best route to do multiple caches. Knowning that there is a canyon between cache A and cache B, may mean I hit cache C before B, although it is a longer trip.

 

As to paper maps, not all of them have tick marks to put the lat/lon or UTM grid on it, so how do you get that "red X" properly placed? Couger Mt Park has a great topo trail map at the main trailheads, and being that it covers an old coal mining area, you are strongly encouraged to stay on the trails (sinkholes, old shafts, etc.). I still haven't been able to plot an accurate placement, except at trail junctions.

 

If I can find the cache while missing the interesting places then that cache is badly placed. I consider a cache as a guide for me that helps find the worthwhile places.

But the cache can only show you the ONE place it's at, unless you are following trails that pass those places. As you like to go cross-country, without a map, how do you expect to find (for example) the 'other waterfall' (fill in your favorite feature).

 

A GPSr does not replace a map or compass, both should be carried and known how to be used. Batteries die, signals get lost/blocked, units dropped and broken, etc. It is one more tool in the backcountry travelers pack - a very good tool, a fun tool, but not the only tool.

 

BTW, I hope you waypoint your car before heading out so you can find your way back.

[+Centex Trekker]

I cached for over a year without maps. I still don't have a Topo map for my GPS, but I do use CitySelect to get me to the parking area. I've found that it saves a lot of gas and time. I can remember a few times before I got it that I had to spend a lot of time checking a paper street map to figure out the best way in.

[+Southview]

Without a map how would you find the trailhead? In my area there are more trails than you can count and just stomping out with the lat/log would be scarry. Even the hints can be misleading, making you think that you are on the right trail. Here in the Berkshire Mountains of Mt. Greaylock you need a map just to find the main roads! :~ )

[Teeds]

Don't go trying to define "fun" for others. You will fail.

folks, this ^^^ is the answer!

 

I have been orienteering for 40 or so years with a map and compass treking all over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and New Mexico.

 

Maps, compass, gps, sextant, whatever ... they are tools of enjoyment.

 

This reminds me of a discussion of how to peel an onion.

[+Renegade Knight]

Don't go trying to define "fun" for others. You will fail.

Yup. To each his own.

[+as77]

So what if defining fun for others is fun for me?

[talon2525]

I don't understand the compass question. You cannot determine the lat/lon with a compass.

 

In my view, the real challenge in geocaching is that you are given a pair of coordinates and a gpsr that tells you where you are, and that is all info you've got. If you have a detailed map and the cache is indicated on the map then what's the point? You don't even need a gpsr.

Not trying to be flip or anything,

But I hiked alot before I started geocaching and more than once I found myself at a point were the map showed a trail or the map showed only one trail in a particular area and when I got there it was no trail or many trails. in this case a GPSr with a waypoint near were I wanted to go was very handy.

On the other hand, I've been in the woods and the batteries or signal poop-out on my reciever then in that case a map and compass was a good little bit of weight to carry.

So I feel that for safety's sake I like to have both. I just feel better prepared for what ever fate throws at me on the trail If I carry both a map (and compass) and a GPSr.

[+fishack]

I really must have jumped off the deep end. I take a laptop with a Topo map program in it. I'm in Oregon and like the Caches up in the mountains, A map really helps because there are a lot logging roads to deal with. This way you can find a road closest to the cach. I looked for a cach last week and it was a 31/2 mile walk into the location and I didn't find it. Hay it's fun nomatter what you use. So do it your way, but have fun