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Warning: I had to pick between a paper map and a GPS for a hiking trip last month
I was heading out to the Green Mountains in Vermont and couldn't decide if I should bring my old DeLorme paper atlas or use my buddy's handheld GPS unit. I went with the paper map because I didn't want to mess with batteries or signal loss. Got totally turned around on a trail that wasn't marked on the map, took me an extra 2 hours to find the campsite. Has anyone else had a paper map fail them like that?
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nora_barnes17d ago
Oh man, the Green Mountains will humble you REAL quick. I did that exact same thing on the Long Trail a few years back with a topo map from 1997. Turns out the trail had been rerouted twice since that map was printed, and I ended up bushwhacking through some THICK scratchy stuff for like an hour before I found the actual path. My buddy with his GPS just laughed at me from the ridge. So yeah, paper maps can absolutely betray you when they're outdated or missing a trail that SOME volunteer decided to cut through without telling anyone.
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