
A Backpacker's Guide to Maps - bryanrasmussen
https://www.outsideonline.com/2404906/backpacking-outdoor-maps-guide
======
habosa
If you're an amateur like me there's one thing you can/should do with no
downside: download the area you're going to using Google Maps offline feature.

It's not super detailed in backcountry but it will have major trails,
major/minor bodies of water, and it will let you leave little GPS breadcrumbs
for yourself when offline.

On weekend trips this has definitely made me more comfortable and it requires
no skills.

~~~
throwaway9d0291
It's highly variable and depends on region but I've found that particularly
when it comes to hiking trails, OpenStreetMap blows Google Maps out of the
water. In my area there are tons of little paths in the forests that are on
OSM and none of the other mainstream mapping services.

On Android, OSMAnd is really good and there's also Maps.me. There are open-
source versions of both on F-Droid as well.

~~~
saiya-jin
I don't even bother using google maps for european alps, only for car
navigation (online). Its vastly superior, so many hiking trails and other
interesting things (like abandoned buildings/temporary sheds) are well
documented, and usually pretty accurate. I've done tons of hikes to places
I've never visited before, met nobody and just planned whole trip based in
presence of those trails. Not a single disappointment.

Personally I use View Ranger on Android which is free and uses OSM maps. I
'preload' it offline by just looking at the whole area online (maybe there is
some preload of a block/circle but I've never needed that, its default cache
is enough for even 2 week hiking). I don't even bother with GPX trails, just
follow the visible trails and decide on spot.

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dmcdm
I've been an avid backpacker for about 20 years now, and my go to for paper
maps has always been USGS 7.5 minute quadrangles. As the article mentions,
they are the "gold standard" for many.

Recently I've had some fun playing around with making my own in
[https://inkatlas.com/](https://inkatlas.com/) which is a great idea and hope
it stays viable for the creator.

~~~
mauvehaus
Their online store is, sadly, paleolithic. I tried to get some for a Grand
Canyon trip, and it should be noted that when they say it might be 3 weeks
before the maps are printed, they mean it. And if you call to check on the
order, you're likely to find that it's been thrown over the wall to the
printing department and nobody who answers the phone can answer a question.
And if you'd like to cancel the order, it's too late because it's been thrown
over the wall.

Great maps, lousy customer service, unfortunately :-(

~~~
gen220
For my Boy Scout troop’s bigger hikes, we would download the PDFs, mark our
trails with highlighters in Preview, then print and laminate them to
circumvent this issue. Some of the maps are still good to use today, a decade
later.

Caveat that I have no idea if this is/was legal, but there’s ways to get
physical copies of the maps without dealing with the bureaucracy :).

~~~
xtiansimon
Mounting maps. When I was in the Boy Scouts we learned to mount USGS maps on
cloth.

I found a blog post which describes the process.

When I was in the Scouts, we would visit the USGS office in Palo Alto, CA to
buy topo maps. Visit the USGS site to see if there is a location near you.[2]

[1]: [http://www.mrgus.net/2017/02/maps-for-going-
afield.html](http://www.mrgus.net/2017/02/maps-for-going-afield.html) [2]:
[https://www.usgs.gov/connect/locations](https://www.usgs.gov/connect/locations)

~~~
gen220
Super fascinating, I'm going to try this out. Thank you for sharing!

Where we were hiking, it was unfortunately raining non-stop for a couple of
days, and the laminated plastic made a big difference.

But you can always read the map under covers or something, as long as it's
transported in a watertight bag, I think the cloth solution might last longer
than ours did (plastic forms creases).

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entangledqubit
As a regular backpacker, I've been pretty happy using my phone as a primary
source and paper maps as backup. On my phone, if you use the right settings
(aggressive battery saver, airplane mode), turning GPS on only when checking
location, and turning it off at night, I can get a solid week of battery life.
(A backup battery pack does not weigh much.) Clearly, I'm not using it for
much else than reading a bit before bed and taking many pictures.

If you go this route, practice using whatever app you're using in off-line
mode to verify your map cache data!!!

That being said, definitely practice with paper maps and maintaining a sense
of direction. This sounds easy but in an emergency situation this can be a
weak link. Nothing sucks more than hiking down the wrong trail for a couple
hours when you're racing against sunset. I've also been in many canyons and
valleys with screwy GPS and heading readings so it's good to be able to
recognize when that tool is going awry.

As far as apps, I mainly use the original Backcountry Navigator. Not the
prettiest but it's been solid for me and the author was responsive back in the
day when I messaged them.

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mynegation
For multi-hour and day hikes I usually use the combination of maps.me, park
pamphlet, and photos of large posters near the trailhead. Works reasonably
well, although I realize that may not work in a multi-day backcountry, mainly
due to the battery and reliability issues. Haven’t done those in a while but
that totally would be a trip where I would pack ye olde compass, paper map,
additional external phone battery and would check phone or GPS only once in a
while to make sure I am not off route.

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RivieraKid
I'm confused why en.mapy.cz is not more popular. It's literally 10x better for
hiking use cases, at least in Czechia (which uses a different data source than
OSM).

This is the same location on Google Maps and Mapy.cz, the difference is just
ridiculous (I use 80% zoom on mapy.cz):
[https://imgur.com/a/Q3mlN5j](https://imgur.com/a/Q3mlN5j)

[https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8942909&y=50.0343394&z=14...](https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=13.8942909&y=50.0343394&z=14&l=0)

~~~
ehnto
It looks like Mapy.cz does use Open Street Map, judging by the copyright in
the bottom left of your link.

~~~
RivieraKid
It uses OSM outside of Czechia.

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DanBC
This is an interesting article, and it makes me realise how lucky I am in the
UK with Ordnance Survey maps.

There are Explorer maps (1:25000 scale) and Ranger maps (1:50000 scale) and
they are well designed with a huge amount of detail.

~~~
zokier
Maybe stupid question, but doesn't most (western) countries have the
equivalent of Ordnance Survey Maps, i.e. government produced decent quality
public map set?

~~~
flother
“Coming from a country where mapmakers tend to exclude any landscape feature
smaller than, say, Pike’s Peak, I am constantly impressed by the richness of
detail on the OS 1:25,000 series. They include every wrinkle and divot of the
landscape, every barn, milestone, wind pump and tumulus. They distinguish
between sand pits and gravel pits and between power lines strung from pylons
and power lines strung from poles. This one even included the stone seat on
which I sat now. It astounds me to be able to look at a map and know to the
square metre where my buttocks are deployed.”

— Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island (1997)

~~~
maxerickson
USGS maps are the US equivalent and slightly more detailed than he indicates:

[https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=38.79182,-105.01797&z=11&b=t...](https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=38.79182,-105.01797&z=11&b=t&o=r&n=0.25)

(That's a tile map, but they were originally available on paper, as described
at the linked story)

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gumby
I’m with the author: I only carry paper maps on through hikes. Batteries are
heavy and peering into a small device gives you no real conception of what
Where you are or what’s ahead.

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peter303
Mr Skurka is a legendary solo long distance hiker in Colorado. He once did the
Pacific Crest Trail plus Continental Divide Trail on the same trip.

~~~
justinator
Here's my and Andrew on a guided backpacking trip. I'm the guy that has the
upper body.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BsG1T0_lwpl/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BsG1T0_lwpl/)

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seniorsassycat
I've dreamed of an eink backcountry map. Ideally it would be a quad fold with
a stilus, but a commercial e reader would work if it had the right software.

Hobby eink displays are a little too expensive for me to buy to experiment
with.

------
ilamont
One issue with both digital and printed maps are missing details. I went on a
scout hike in the Adirondacks last summer with an experienced guide whose day
job was an instructor with the U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School. We had good
printed topographical maps of the areas to the south of Tupper Lake in St.
Lawrence county, and on rare occasions could get a one or two bars for phone
maps.

However, on one 20-mile segment, we were really thrown off by unmarked and
unmapped roads peeling off through the forest from mapped roads, created by
logging companies and private landowners. In one case one of those unmarked
roads proved to be a time-saving shortcut when we got lost, but at other times
we had to backtrack when we realized we had taken the wrong branch.

The other really helpful map we encountered were marked snowmobile trails.
Snowmobilers in rural parts of the state are very well organized, and have
created a network of trails stretching from western NY to the Adirondacks in
the northeast part of the state. Besides trail markers, they have erected
trail maps at intersections showing trails at the county level, which were
very helpful.

~~~
lucb1e
OpenStreetMap is generally very good at this, have you looked at whether the
unmapped roads are already in there? Or do you remember the location, like,
coordinates? As a contributor to the project I'm curious to take a look.
(Though in the USA, OSM doesn't seem to be catching on as much as in the rest
of the world; if you're doing stuff with the USA Army I guess odds are good
that it's on continental USA and may not be in there either.)

Edit: for what it's worth, Adirondacks is known as a camp site (last edited 22
hours ago; mapped 10 months ago)
[https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/6540365056](https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/6540365056)

~~~
improbable22
By Adirondacks I think GP means the whole mountain range,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adirondack_Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adirondack_Mountains)
. Would be curious though to know whether OSM has those roads.

------
ctrager
I apologize if I'm duplicating info here because I didn't read TFA or all the
comments, but the resources I've use are the _offline_ maps in Backcountry
Navigator (paid), ViewRanger (free), AllTrails (paid), Maps.me (free, no topo
info, but a surprising amount of trails). If bought custom waterproof maps
from mytopo.com and I've downloaded maps US topo maps from
[https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/](https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/)
and then had them printed at Office Depot (at a readable size, but not on
waterproof paper). Having multiple sources of truth helps, and also I've had
glitches downloading maps offline that I didn't discover until I was on the
trail, so the offline maps of apps back up each other. And also I've used
Guthook for the PCT, which is wonderful.

I'll add that I carry an extra battery anyway to power not just my phone but
my Kindle and my Garmin Inreach Mini.

------
Ayesh
I use a combination of paper maps and an overview map on paper. For trails
like Annapurna circuit or Everest Base Camp, the paper leaflets are quite
helpful as they help you plan the hike by days. However, I prefer the digital
maps, specially OSM because the sheer amount of information they contain, and
I can contribute too. Not every shelter has running water, hot water,
electricity, etc. Not many maps indicate them either. But OSM is full of these
small yet helpful information.

~~~
i_have_no_idea
What is your workflow to use OSM? With an app, or do you prepare a map
specifically? A special device? Thanks!

~~~
improbable22
On an iphone, I can't recommend [https://mapout.app/](https://mapout.app/)
enough. It's simple & good-looking, it's easy to download tiles of the area
you need (not countries) while on wifi, but designed to work mostly offline.
It's a few dollars up front & then zero nagging.

Friend on Android like OsmAnd, which sounds like a much bigger app, contours
are an add-on IIRC. I think can even do things like editing the map &
submitting your corrections.

I have never got around to printing maps, but have occasionally carried paper
maps too. OSM is not as detailed as the best EU country maps, but is far
better than anything on paper in most faraway mountain ranges.

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throw7
"If I lose my paper maps or get way off route—both have happened—digital maps
become invaluable."

That's a weird flex to make "digital" maps look better. I suppose that's a nod
to have both (I agree), but it's also being "p.c.". Bring a paper map for more
than a day trip. It's better in all respects that matter.

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kadang
There's a great collection of topographic maps available here (not my
website): [https://dzjow.com/2012/04/12/free-online-topographic-maps-
fo...](https://dzjow.com/2012/04/12/free-online-topographic-maps-for-hiking/)

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diebir
Here's something on the next level:

[https://thingstolucat.com/category/trip-
planning/](https://thingstolucat.com/category/trip-planning/)

Skurka is obviously is one of the great ones. But so is Luc and he extends
quite a bit on the subject.

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Dowwie
I print topo maps onto tearproof paper. I used to use
[https://mappingsupport.com](https://mappingsupport.com) but haven't found an
alternative since it closed down.

~~~
chrisseaton
How do you manage to get the scaling exactly correct? I print maps onto
waterproof paper from an app, but the scale is never _quite_ right, which
makes them hard to use.

~~~
Dowwie
try taking a screenshot image and work with that instead

~~~
chrisseaton
I mean when you send it to your printer, how do you get the grid squares to be
exactly 40x40 mm, or whatever, so you can use roamers and other tools on the
map?

~~~
Dowwie
Oh, I understand. Not sure!

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senderista
Is the map machine at the REI flagship store in Seattle still there? That's
what I used to use.

