Ep 41: Tools for Backcountry Navigation, with Mike Raether
Mike Raether, who first appeared back on episode 22 to talk about using pack goats for backcountry fly fishing, is back again. This time, we're talking backcountry navigation. Of course, it’s not really possible to actually learn how to navigate with a map and compass over an hour-long audio podcast, so this episode is more about the pros and cons of digital and paper maps, when you might use each one, where to find good topo maps, helpful tools to pair with a map, and some tips and tricks to be more confident while trying to find your way around.
Resources Mike mentions:
Be Expert with Map and Compass by Bjorn Kjellstrom
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. all right welcome to episode number 41 of the fish untamed podcast. This episode is my first repeat guest. Mike Raether joined me back in episode number 22 to talk about pack goats in backcountry fly fishing. And this time he is coming on to talk about backcountry navigation and the benefits of being proficient in both a paper map and compass navigation system, as well as GPS and other digital systems like phone apps and things like that. So obviously, as an audio-only podcast, we can't get into extreme detail on how to use a map and compass to get from point A to point B. If that's something you've never had any experience with, that's obviously a better skill to be taught in person or at least via print material or video. So this episode is a little bit more about some tricks and tools you can use if you do have a little bit of experience with paper maps and compasses. the benefits of both print and digital navigation tools, and when you might use each one in the field. So without further ado, here is my second chat with Mike Raether. All right, I am sitting down with my first repeat guest. How are you doing tonight, Mike?
Mike
I'm doing great.
Katie
Weather treating you well?
Mike
Well, it is what it is. I had to spread a bunch of sand and snow well today, or ice melt, but yeah, it's OK.
Katie
And have you been getting out on the water at all?
Mike
No, not much going on this time of year, unless you want to drift some San Juan worms or something and have cold, cold hands. But some people do, and I've been known to do it. I've been known to fish through the ice for them. Yeah.
Katie
Yeah, I don't mind winter fishing, but I don't do a ton of it because I've got other things I like doing in the winter. But yeah, there's people still out there every day.
Mike
I like getting caught up on all the things around the house that I put off so that I could go fishing.
Katie
Yeah. I feel the same way. Winners are time to get stuff done so we don't have to be here much during the summer.
Mike
Exactly.
Katie
Well, I appreciate you coming on to talk about this because navigation is a topic that I feel like I'm probably more well-versed than your average person. But that's not saying much because I feel like most people probably don't know much about navigation at all. So I'm excited to hear your point of view and pick your brain a little bit because it sounds like you're pretty experienced in both digital and paper.
Mike
I've been after it for a while, yeah.
Katie
Yeah. Well, I'll kind of let you jump in because I know you've kind of got a set of things you want to talk about. But maybe just start out by explaining what you think the benefits of kind of knowing both types of navigation, navigation as a whole, like kind of an overview, a 30,000 foot view.
Mike
Well, I think navigation, I think it's one of your basic skills. It's one of the two skills we need to have, like how to start a fire in the woods. you know, when the woods are soaking, soaking wet, you know, things like that can depend on your survival sometimes, you know, and knowing how to navigate. You know, Daniel Boone once said, I've never been lost, but I've been confused a few times. And that's true. But I'll tell you, with a map and compass and a GPS reading, I'm never lost. I can tell where I am within 10 yards. I think part of it's just fun.
Katie
No, I think you're right. I feel like there's a certain type of person and it's me and a lot of my friends who just enjoy looking at maps in our free time you know just looking at looking at how things connect how they fit together how you navigate through a landscape it's just kind of a fun fun activity to do at home too
Mike
yeah but most of my well I wouldn't say most of it but a lot of my work my preparation work's all done at home so by the time I hit the field I know where I'm going I know what my expected route should be what I should expect to find in the field and if there's some obstacles, I've probably charted a course to go around them. And we'll talk about that too. That's called making a deliberate error.
Katie
Well, quick question on like when you're comparing things at home, because I do the same thing. I'm looking, planning, and trying to identify features and things like that. And sometimes I feel really proud of myself when I get out there and I feel like I got it right. And then there's other times where I go out and it's just not what I pictured. What are your thoughts on that? Do you ever go out and it's just not what you interpreted from what you were looking at? Or are you pretty solid on like, this is exactly how I pictured it going?
Mike
No, I wouldn't say I'm always ready for it. But you can look at the contour lines on a map and know that they're separated. The lines come every 20 feet or 40 feet or whatever. And some people say, well, the lines are closer together. It's into the unexpected sometimes because it turns out there's a boulder there that wasn't there before or wasn't wasn't given on the map well they're not going to give every boulder or anything so you got to find a way around it things like that you know or maybe there's a it's a little steeper than you thought it was going to be when you know
Katie
that's that's a bad one for me I have a nasty habit of being like oh I'll just walk up that I don't care if it's steep like I can I can I can even see that the map says it's going to be steep but I'm like well it's not going to be that steep and then you get there and boy it's it's it's easy to underestimate what you're facing
Mike
Very easy. Yeah. Yeah. That's happened another number of times or in some cases, you know, because they're getting a lot better, a lot better keeping the maps up to date these days, both the digital and the paper maps too. So they constantly are under review. I mean, the most recent ones are just, you know, five or six years old and they get corrected for things. But for example, if you're looking at an old topo map, that's maybe, I don't know, say 10, 15 years old. And they dammed up a stream and made a reservoir that's not on the map.
Katie
So there you go.
Mike
Gee, where'd that come from?
Katie
Do you find there are any other differences with older maps? Because obviously, for the most part, the terrain is going to be about the same. You know, the slopes and things like that. But I feel like anything related to humans is up for change. Trails and stuff like that. Any other specific things you've come across that are really cool?
Mike
I found out with the Forest Service maps and the VILPO maps that they're pretty accurate when it comes to trails. at least within about, oh, 15 yards or so of where you're actually at. But it gives you a pretty good lay of the land.
Katie
Okay. Now, I don't know if you want to dive into this now, but kind of still touching on this overview, do you want to kind of give an overview of, like, why you want to be well-versed in both paper and digital? Because I'll admit about 90% of my navigation is done digitally now, but I still carry a paper map and compass, even just for rudimentary navigation. And my thought being, even with just the compass, that I know what road I came in on. I can keep that as a border on the north, south, east, or west and know if I head that direction, I'll eventually hit civilization. Just kind of like an overview of which way is safety. But I'm sure there are tons of benefits to paper maps over digital. If you just want to give kind of an overview of that.
Mike
There are. Paper maps these days, of course, with the advent of all the digital helps that we have, they're going to be kind of passe. Do we really need a paper map? You know, that kind of thing. But basically, like I said earlier, if I've got a map and a compass and a GPS that just gave me the reading, I mean, I know exactly what pretty close where I'm at, within 10 yards usually.
Katie
Yeah, and I feel like one thing to note, too, is that part of the difficulty of using a paper map is knowing where you are on it. I feel like a lot of people can do pretty well with a paper map if they're shown where they're located. And some of the time I feel like that's easy enough just to pull out your phone, see where you're located on that, and then you could use the paper map from there on out. to follow trails and things like that but it's a little bit more complicated if you if you aren't sure where you are and you need to kind of figure that out
Mike
well yeah for example if you’re, well I had this happen several years ago I was on my way to a certain lake and the trail head was not signed I mean it was so overgrown that you didn't even hardly know there was a trail there but I used the map and the map said well the trail's got to be here we're you know I'm pretty darn close to it just within several yards I suppose and so I got up the gps I use it one on my wrist kind of a And I took a GPS reading and that told me where the transfer from the map, what the GPS coordinates were for the trail. And I found the trail.
Katie
Yeah. So basically, you know where things are supposed to be and you can kind of use context clues to get there.
Mike
Well, you know, it can be as simple actually as just taking an orienteering compass or a basic compass and putting it down near your chest and looking, you know, looking down at the compass and finding your magnetic north and looking straight ahead. And you go, okay, well, I'm going to hunt that direction or walk that direction or whatever. And to get back to the road, for example, all I got to do is reverse the compass 180 degrees, find north again, and away I go, you know.
Katie
Back at the weekend.
Mike
So, you go out and you go back. It can be as simple as that or it can get quite a bit more complicated. It's really challenging. I mean, it's a science. It's a skill that's worth developing. You see, you know, now with iPhones and handheld GPS and stuff, you know, we can have some really good advantages there over maps. But maps, I think, have it over the digital in some aspects. I mean, if you sit on a map, the worst it's going to happen is going to get crinkled.
Katie
Right. Or I guess wet if it's not waterproof.
Mike
It could be on waterproof paper. If you use a laser printer to print it out, a lot of maps are available online these days. Then it's basically just about waterproof until a paper falls apart.
Katie
Yeah, I guess the solution to that is just keep it in a Ziploc bag and pull it out when you need it.
Mike
Another event, well, yeah, that's what I do too. Usually I've got three things with me. I've got my wearable wrist GPS and then I've got a map, seven and a half minute series. We'll talk a little bit about what that means if you like. And then I've got my compass and GPS and the map and I'm good. A lot of the lakes I've been to, High Mountain Lakes, they're off the trail. I mean, they're cross-country. And here in my part of Montana, in the mountains that I live in, going cross-country is pretty easy because there's not a lot of undergrowth. And sometimes you can follow a deer trail, a game trail, or something to follow for a little ways.
Katie
Yeah, I found that we have trouble off-trail in certain parts of Colorado because the beetle kill is so bad. where we hunt, it's so easy to get turned around because you'll see which direction you want to head. And then you are basically looking down at your feet the whole time because you're trying to, you know, navigate over these downed trees. And by the time you found a route through the trees, you have no idea which way you were facing. And it's in woods, so it's hard to keep track of a landmark on the horizon. So that's one of those times where I've literally just walked with a compass, staring down at the compass, kind of with the ground in the background of the compass I'm looking at, because I need to kind of navigate over the trees while also maintaining the same direction of travel. So it gets a little bit difficult with all those trees down.
Mike
That's where a GPS can have it all over a map and compass, because if you get fogged in or something, you can't pick out that landmark behind the trees. You know, if it's raining heavily and you've got some unfavorable atmospheric conditions, we might say, you know, it just doesn't work out so well. Someone wrote this. I'm just going to quote this from you. It comes off a web page. This is a GPS receiver's hands down the fastest, most accurate way to determine your location on a map. It will work in many conditions, such as I've just talked about, where using a compass can find your location. Finding your location is difficult or impossible, such as darkness or reduced visibility and so on and so forth. But a GPS receiver is no substitute for good traditional navigation skills. You still need a good map along with the skills to use it. Most likely, you still want to carry a compass and a knowledge to use it. I remember I was, I had one lake, one lake in this area I go to all the time because it just, it's great cutthroat fishing. And, and even though it gets a lot of pressure, it maintains it quite well. Well, I've been there so many times. I thought, well, I don't need to take my map. I don't need to take my GPS or anything. I know where this lake is at. Well, this lake is off. There's no trail to it. There's a kind of a rough fisherman's trail to it. But I figured I knew where it was. And I got up in there. I had a friend with me and I was going to show off my navigation skills that I didn't need all these things. And I could never find that lake. We just went up and down hills and I was so embarrassed that I'm never leaving home again without a map and compass.
Katie
I'm at the same situation. Yep. Places you've been to before and it just doesn't look the way you remembered it. You're like, oh, I picture there being trees here and there's not or something like a scree field or something like that. It just maybe you're seeing it from a different angle. Because that's something I've noticed too is seeing something from a slightly different angle can make it look completely different. So places I've been where I'm like, oh, that mountain's always in the distance. You approach it from a couple hundred yards left to right and it doesn't look the same. Something's blocked in your view and it's just helpful to have that backup to know where you are.
Mike
Definitely. Yeah. Well, there's some real advantages to paper maps for one thing, even over electronic maps that you have in your smartphone. Electronics can fail. batteries go dead. Maybe you sit on the thing. Maybe it's damaged, you know, with a paper map, you can write on them. You can make notes. You can plot a course or a route and it's right there for you when you need it. You've done it at home. So you're ready to go.
Katie
That's my biggest holdup with electronics is I'm always worried. I'm going to drop my phone in a river or something there. That's it. It's gone. At that point, you've got bigger problems than just, oh, my phone's dead. It might be a matter of I'm five miles from the nearest trail and I need to get out.
Mike
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, of course, there's advantages with phones, too, you know, or even a handheld GPS. You know, I mean, especially if it's on a phone, you know, I use iHeight on my iPhone, but there's less stuff to carry, for one thing. You know, we're all, we're backpackers, but we're very, very conscious of that. But basically, it's all in one, you know. You just got to make sure it's a GPS-capable phone. Not all of them are. But, for one thing, it's a phone, you know, if you can get cell phone contact, and that's not too hard in a lot of places these days. You've got an emergency beacon, basically, and it's a camera. The cameras on iPhones are pretty good.
Katie
Right, you're going to be carrying it anyway.
Mike
Yeah, you're going to carry it anyway. I mean, what I do, I need to take all my camera equipment. But it's a note taker. You can make notes to yourself later. So there's all kinds of advantages there. Of course, the one main disadvantage is it can fail or damage.
Katie
And luckily, I feel like none of this stuff is particularly heavy. Like you said, we're already carrying our phones anyway for possible phone contact, photos, things like that. But to throw in a paper map and compass adds a couple ounces. And I know ounces add up to pounds, but at the end of the day, it's not like you have to throw in a giant piece of equipment to get both your bases covered.
Mike
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And it just builds your confidence. If you've got a map and compass and you know how to use it along with your GPS, whether you have a GPS or not. You know, I started mapping compass navigation when GPS was in its infancy. I mean, it was reserved for the military. I mean, they had a what they call the selective air built into it. So your GPS might tell you you're in one spot and you're actually might be 50 miles away, you know, military purposes. So, you know, they built in delivered errors. And so this is, you know, we're going back about the year 2000 or so, I guess it was when they first started putting up GPS satellites. withdrawing the selective navigation feature. But before that, I lived over in Washington State. I lived on the coast, north end of Puget Sound, and I had a 24-foot boat with cabin on it and stuff. And so I liked to go to the boat show, and when I heard about this problem with GPS, I thought, well, jeez, I don't want GPS, and I've got my boat in dry moorage, and I've got to put it in the river to go out, and it's often foggy, and I've got to go underneath the bridge and the river's not very wide and what am I going to do? Well, I got radar so I can see the bridge. But then I went to GPS as soon as they took away the selective air issue.
Katie
Yeah, I've noticed it's pretty good now. Occasionally, I'll have something tell me, well, I guess basically my phone will tell me I'm in the wrong spot when I know where I am. It's not usually far off, but occasionally it's enough off that I would be concerned if I didn't know where I were. And it does make me think when I'm somewhere that I'm not familiar with, like, is this correct or not? But generally, the places I am, there's enough features that you can figure it out. You know, maybe there's just supposed to be a stream right to your left and there's not. So maybe walk till you find that stream. But I have noticed that even now in certain areas, the digital GPS doesn't get it right on every time.
Mike
No. And another problem with digital GPS. GPS units in general is that they are, you know, calculating your position from those 24 navigation satellites that are up there. And so, you know, if they can't see those satellites, like you're in thick tree cover, the country in which we often find ourselves in, they may, it may not work. You may not be able to triangulate. You may not be able to know your exact location with the, with the GPS. But if you've got a topo map with you and you know how to read it, well, you can go, okay, well, there's, I recognize that land watch, as you said, you know, there's that ridge that points down into the field and, you know, you can figure out, pretty much figure out where you're at. At least you're not lost. So, wondering what am I going to do, spend the night here now or what?
Katie
Hopefully, yeah, hopefully you're ready for that if needed. I had a quick question for you though, that I don't, I really don't know the answer to and maybe you'll have some insight, but we were recently on an antelope hunt out on the eastern plains of Colorado. So, basically flat, You can see from miles and miles. And we noticed that our phone GPSs had more problems out there than we've ever experienced before. Not with location, but with direction. Because at least the app I use, it'll show you which way you're pointing. And it's generally been pretty accurate in the mountains and around town. But out on the plains where it was super flat, I expected to have better service than ever before. and it could not for the life of itself get the direction correct. I know I was facing my car. I could see it through my binoculars five miles away and it was saying I was pointing complete opposite direction and I'd have to turn around and turn around and it would finally eventually kind of register which way it was supposed to be facing. But do you have any idea why out in the open plains it would struggle so much?
Mike
I don't. It would seem to me, you know, that's what I would think too is I would suppose that you're just going to get a very strong signal out there right there may have been some maybe some iron deposit or maybe you were too close if you had a firearm with you you might have been a little bit too close to that and that can throw off the compass a little bit but actually I'm talking on thinking about that and that can't happen with gps because it's determining your direction from the satellites not from the magnetic north
Katie
yeah I wasn't sure how phones did the compass feature because I assume the app pulls from the phone's compass like I've got a compass feature in my iphone and I would assume that the app doesn't do its own compass individually. I would assume it just pulls that data from the compass in your phone, but I wasn't sure how the compass in the phone actually got itself oriented.
Mike
It orients itself by triangulating with the satellites above it. So that's how it determines compass directions. So you're thinking, "Yeah, okay, I can see that happening." Because if it gets your direction wrong or if it's not communicating properly with the satellite, then it could get quite easily get the compass direction wrong.
Katie
Yeah. I'm not sure. Cause like I said, it didn't get the location wrong. I felt pretty confident that it was where I, where it was saying I was based on, you know, waypoints I had marked previously and things like that. It was pretty accurate there, but just not with the direction. And I was just surprised no, no weather or anything like that. Just clear skies and flat land and just couldn't understand why it was messing up so much, but I'll have to keep asking around and see if anyone's experienced that.
Mike
That's an interesting question. Google it.
Katie
But anyway, back to paper maps.
Mike
We should probably talk just a little bit about topo maps for those who may be kind of new to that. What do you think? Talk a little bit about that, the scales and so on?
Katie
Yeah, yeah. I know you also mentioned that one of the benefits is the larger field of view compared to a phone.
Mike
Oh, much larger, yes.
Katie
Yeah, you can look at a much larger area, how it connects. It's hard to scroll around a phone screen. if you zoom out far enough to get a good field of view, you can't really see much detail. Yeah. - Yeah. If you wanna talk about like where you get the paper maps, which ones you use.
Mike
Okay, sure. Well, let's just dive into that briefly here. How long do we have?
Katie
As long as you want.
Mike
Okay. All right. Well, they begin with the smallest or the way, basically it's largest scale, which is the 15 minute series USGS map. It's also known by the 1 in 24,000 scale, which basically means 1 inch is 2,000. Yeah, 1 inch on the map is 2,000 inches in the field, I should say.
Katie
Or it would be 24,000?
Mike
Yeah, 1 in 24,000. But basically, I remember this. It works out to about 2.5 inches per mile on a 7.5-minute series map. So basically, if you put a ruler on there and you go, I got 2.5 inches, well, you can see that's large detail. considering that most contour lines major anywhere from 20 to 40 to 50 feet between them you can get a good idea of the elevation in there too so you can say well I've got to go a couple miles this way and then it's gonna get steep you know so on so forth and that's just basic navigation basically the seven and a half minute series is of latitude and longitude it's I can't remember exactly how many square miles it was now and I lost it it's seven and a half minutes of latitude and seven and a half minutes of longitude and while we're talking longitude and latitude I want to just say this most navigators are have gone over to the UTM scale universe transfer transverse mercator that was developed and don't ask me what it means it's just that they named it it will basically measure your distance a lot more accurately rather than the longitude and latitude so if you could change your gps over your hand mill to utm and get a utm seven and a half minute series map you're going to find yourself going to be a lot more accurate that way okay see land is latitude and latitude were developed during the early aircraft days to divide up you know sections of the earth and so a lot of longitude and latitude a lot longitude and latitude works really good if you're in an airplane but not literally as good if you're walking along you know along on the ground
Katie
is that because the earth isn't a perfect sphere but if you're in the air it essentially is a perfect sphere
Mike
it's kind of technical but for example in in Alaska because they're so near the pole their maps are in different scales and have to be to be able to show everything accurately
Katie
because the projection that far north and south okay
Mike
exactly yeah yeah you can get maps quite easily these days I was surprised as I was looking around a lot of places offer free digital downloads now, credible PDF maps in seven and a half series and 15 minute series. The 15 minute series, we didn't talk about that, but basically there are four seven and a half minute series and a 15 minute series map. So you got left, right, up, down, you know, so you've got those. So there's four of those. So you can see that the 15 minute series is, I think that is one to 63,360 scale. Basically, it's one inch to a mile approximately. But you want to use the largest scale that you can possibly get away with the cars.
Katie
And largest scale is smaller area, just to clarify, right? The small scale would be a large area without much detail, and large scale is a small area with a lot of detail. I feel like it sounds a little counterintuitive.
Mike
It seems like it would go the other way, but it doesn't.
Katie
Large scale is like large detail, basically, but smaller area.
Mike
When I'm using maps, I usually carry a 15-minute, and I print that at home. Oh, we were talking about free locations. USGS has got free digital maps. You can go to usgs.com, get free digital maps, kind of PDF maps in 7.5 minutes and 15-minute centers. That is not as good as a paper map, know hard copy paper map because you're not going to get as much detail it's not going to be maybe the right colors
Katie
yeah I've experienced that with like a black and white printout on 11 by eight paper it's I don't know it's not the same as getting one of the nice nicer material nice printed in color that you can pick up at a store or something like that
Mike
and you can spray those too with a fixative I've used I've done that before spraying with a fixative so they're they're pretty waterproof another good source is nat geo maps I've noticed yeah I've used them you've used them yeah that's yeah and then what's nice about nat geo is on their locator map you know the large the large the small scale I guess we call it it gives you an index of the quad names sometimes the toughest thing is to find out what's the adjoining you know seven and a half minute series map you know because I'm now off of this one and I'm on the other one so where does it you know where does this one stop and the other one begins and so they give you an index there another thing it's nice too another map and other maps that are other maps that are nice is the most recent national forest service maps a lot of those have gone topical and have been updated just a few years ago so they give you a big picture kind of thing you know and then then I carry a kind of a media map like 15 minute series and then the seven and a half minute series is the one that and carrying the field. I use the 15-minute series at home, but basically it's kind of a locator. That's the advantage is you can print out a map and carry it on an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper and be able to fold it up and stick it in your pocket and there it sits unless you need it.
Katie
Right. And I've used NatGeo more recently than USGS. I found the interface to be easier. Like you said, it was easier for me to find my area as well as the adjoining areas. I don't remember exactly how it's set up, but I just remember it being very intuitive to find the exact map I needed and any maps around the edges. And I remember USGS was a little harder for me to figure out how to get my map printed. I just took a lot more clicking around and finding the right place to go.
Mike
There's one more that's pretty good too. It's called CalTOPO.
Katie
Yeah, I've heard of CalTOPO.
Mike
They're free. You get a free account, and so you can download a lot of the maps that you need If you want to pay for an up-level account, then of course you get more privileges. We all know how that works. But they do have the free maps that happen at N15 Minutes. They're just available, so that's pretty cool. And signing up for the account is free. So obviously they're probably going to spam you.
Katie
That's the price of being free. That's just a given, yeah. Now do you ever buy any of the, like I know I own a couple of the National Geographic maps that you basically see at every outdoor store. REI, a lot of fly shops carry them. And they're basically the exact same maps, I think, that you can print on Nat Geo, but they're on the nice waterproof paper. They're like a much larger map where it folds out. Do you ever purchase any maps like that? Or are you putting most of them?
Mike
I haven't purchased those, but I'm aware of them. I know that they do put those out. But for me, for my purposes, for a lot of people, they'd be fine. But for my purposes, I'm often off the trail, you know, and those are like, here's a map of the Pacific Crest Trail or Yellowstone Park or something like that. And it's very good for, you know, day hikes or whatever, but for really getting out in the back country, I found them to not be, not be as useful.
Katie
Yeah. I do notice that they're more for specific areas, but they often cover a little bit more than just that specific area. Like I know they have basically for every national park, but I've also found them for, at least in Colorado, they have them for different regions, basically. Around this town will be one of the maps. And so it'll just show all the wilderness around that town or something like that. But you do have to find the map that matches what you're looking for. And a lot of times, they don't have one that I'm aware of that's available for really remote areas.
Mike
Yeah, I don't think they're available for remote areas like that. But they're going to give you a good overview. You should have a small-scale map with you as well, or I guess I don't know what small sky gets those those confused all the time anyway for example if you've got well Delorme makes a Montana Atlas and he has a chair they make one for Colorado too as well as many other states a lot of the latest ones are topographic they're very very I mean like like one to 250 thousands you know it's like one inches four miles but they're more good as a locator map and plus they've got the roads on it too so you can you know use those in the field as well.
Katie
I feel like, do you happen to think that those small scale maps that the really, you know, one inch might be multiple miles, do you find those more useful at home when you're kind of planning a big picture of like how you want to get through an area and then switching to one of those large scale maps for a precise, like once you've decided where you're going, kind of the precise navigation in there? Because I feel like that large field of view is really helpful when you're, you want to, you look at an entire wilderness area, let's say, and figure out where you might want to go
Mike
yeah exactly I use three different maps I use them at home like I said I do most of my prep work at home I use a large or I know I'm going to get you doing it but anyway the very shows a lot of territory let's put it that way it's a lot of territory and use that as basically a locator and then I'll go to a seven and a half minute series and maybe I find a lake that doesn't have you know anything in it or it doesn't have a trail to it no way no way to get in there and so I want to plot a course and a route and then get into that lake so so I'm going to go to the the type of map that's going to show you a lot more a lot more detail people don't realize there is a lot of detail on a topo map a ton of detail I mean it's marshy ground or here's a stream or intermittent stream there's even a difference between intermittent streams and and permanent streams you know the way they're drawn on the map
Katie
yeah so I know this is on your list to talk about and it might be a little bit difficult via just audio only, but do you want to talk a little bit about how to use one of these maps, how to find your location on one and then how to navigate around once you've got that location as best you can via an audio podcast?
Mike
Yeah, exactly. Let me give you an example of how I use this. They make map tools. There's actually a site you can go to, maptools.com, and they've got tons of map tools and I've got a little, just a little square plastic I show it to you because you're on camera there but it's a UTM scale and it's for seven and a half minute series or on up to 163,360 so it's in it's a UTM so it's in meters so you're gonna have to get thinking that way a little bit but with using this and for map tools and a paper map and a GPS coordinate I know exactly where I'm at at all times for example we was on an elk hunt with some friends one time we were looking at the top of a ridge and we knew that the elk used that as a main migration route. So we thought, you know, let's climb to the top of it. Well, as we were going up, it kept getting steeper and steeper and steeper, which we figured it would, you know, based on the topo map. And we're just off to the side of a rock slide in one area there, and somebody asked, well, how much further is it to the top? Man, this is getting to be tiring. And lunch is calling. So I said, well, I'll show you how this works. So I got out the paper map and I knew my coordinate on my GPS. And so I was able to use that UTM scale to pinpoint my exact position and tell them, well, it was within 10 yards anyway, and tell them that we still had, you know, half a mile to go as the crow flies or maybe a mile as the elk run. So we decided to go back to camp and have a spam sandwich. That's what we did.
Katie
So how are you using that tool to translate from a location on a GPS? Because I feel like I would just look at my phone and say, there's the dot, and I will just kind of look at the map and compare features and figure out where I am. Were you using it to calculate a distance from a certain feature to pinpoint your location on the map, or what were you using the tool for?
Mike
That way, too. You know, you can use it that way. Basically, the little map tool allows you to do that, and maptools.com has got just tons of them for whatever. I mean, if you want latitude, longitude, they'll give it to you that way too. But they have tons of tools. Basically, you just lay the scale over the coordinates, UTM coordinates on the map if you're using UTM, and you're just going to triangulate and draw a big X. So you're going to know, okay, based on my coordinates, and you might draw a few little lines on there too with a pencil or something, another big advantage of the paper map. So you can determine your position exactly. Well, I'm right here, you know.
Katie
Okay, so you're using the coordinates.
Mike
The tool allows you to transfer the coordinates onto the paper map.
Katie
Okay, okay, that makes more sense. So basically, it's the difference between looking at a rough, you know, you can see the dot on your phone and say, okay, I can see I'm like a little bit south of that mountain and you could roughly figure out where you are on the map. But if you're actually looking for a, how far am I from the next place, you want to calculate it from a specific location, not just a rough estimate of where you are on that map. So you're using the coordinates that your digital GPS gives you to find an exact spot on the map versus a rough estimate of where you are.
Mike
That's one of the big advantages of digital, too, because if you're at home doing your map work at home, the digital map will allow you to drop a pin or put a waypoint exactly on the map where you want to go. So let's say you've got to travel a half a mile and then you've got a skirt, you know, a finger of a ridge coming down. So you, you know, set a waypoint on the other side, one side of that and on the other side of that. So you're going to make a jog, you know, and so you can do that at home and print out the map. And that works pretty well, too. And I found that to the printed maps, even if you're going to use a map tool with them, are pretty accurate. So even if you're out there and you say, well, I went to this waypoint, that waypoint, but I'd really like to go over there, you know. And so you can find out that location on the map.
Katie
Okay. Now, do you ever do any manual triangulation, just looking at landmarks in the distance to figure it out? Oh, yeah. Okay. So are you able to describe how to do that?
Mike
To use a topo map, you really need what's called an orienteering compass. A regular compass isn't going to do it. You use what's called an orienteering compass or a base plate compass or a GPS compass. Basically, it's got a plate on the bottom. I could show you. You can find them online. They're made by a number of different companies. But basically, you'd put that on the map and draw your route, and your base plate compass is automatically adjusted, or you can adjust it for the declination. People don't understand sometimes that magnetic north is not true north, and maps are drawn for true north. And so if you're using a base plate compass, you can put it on the map and say, oh, I'm going to go to this place on the map, and you can orient it to the map, and it adjusts itself for, or you adjust it for declination, the difference between magnetic north and true north, and then you can walk right to it. What I do is just take the map and put it, or take the compass and put it right against my chest. You know, I want to go that direction, for example, or I need to go that direction to reach that point. You know, so I've got it right to my chest. I point myself in that direction. I go, and then I raise my eyes up, and I'll take on a tree, and I'll walk to the tree, or a boulder, or whatever, you know, not too far away, walk to that, and do the same thing over again. Because as you twist the dial, you're not only getting on the base plate compass, you're not only getting the degrees, the 360 degrees, but you're also getting it lined up with the map rather than against the map. If you look on the top of a map in the lower right-hand corner, there's usually a little, looks like a little triangle down there. And it'll give you the distance. There's a little star on one hand that will give you the distance between true north and magnetic north. True north is map north. So you need to take that into account. My declination, oh, there's one here in front of me. It's 14.5 degrees. Where it was on June 27th of 2010. Some people don't realize Magnetic North does move sometimes.
Katie
Right, and I think you can find it online, too, just by Googling your location. Oh, yeah. They'll be able to tell you what your declination is, and then you can just, it should be basically in your compass instructions to show you how to set your declination for your compass.
Mike
There's a big advantage of the digital, too. when you print it out, you know, you've got your waypoints on there and the waypoints are in your computer or in your GPS. You know, I'm going to go here and you can read the waypoints on there and put them on there and then you just walk through in the field and makes it very, very easy to do that. And if you ever get confused, well, I think it was here, but now I don't know exactly where I am, then you pull out your paper map, your UGM tool or whatever map tool you're using, and you can find your exact location on that map.
Katie
So I don't know if you wanted to keep talking about paper maps, but do you separate a separate GPS from your phone, or do you kind of consider those two things one in the same benefits, same pros and cons, things like that, or do you want to talk about those separately?
Mike
Well, as far as the digital stuff is concerned, you did a really good job on one of your blogs here not too long ago, on backcountry navigation. I really appreciated that. That was good. So you cover a lot of bases there, but not everybody necessarily listens to the podcast or reads the blogs and vice versa. We get our information different ways. So the important thing to remember about all that is that I use all three. I use a GPS on my compass or on my iPhone. I use GPS on the iPhone. That doesn't give me much detail. Maybe the best way to approach this would be to tell you what I do at home, and that would give some people an idea, and maybe put a fire in them for learning map navigation. It takes a little bit. It's not, as they say, rocket science. I start usually with a National Forest Service map, and I'm looking for trails to lakes, but maybe I'm looking for a lake that doesn't have a trail to it. So I can place my waypoints, determine my route to that lake, but that gives me a big picture. So then I've got to go to a seven and a half minute series to get a really large land mass, you know, picture. Not large, but small. I get those two confused all the time. Anyway, the seven and a half minute series, we'll call it that. And then I can walk directly to those locations and without having to bother, you know, with anything else. So basically, I'll start with a large map. This might be giving you an idea. I've got an example. I wanted to go This is an area that's loved by hikers for all the right reasons. I mean, it's got 10 lakes, over 10 lakes in that area. Half of them don't have trails to them. Some of them don't contain fish, some of them do. Well, there's ways to find that out too, but that's another subject. So anyway, I looked at a large scale map and I went, okay, there's the trail. That's the trail I wanted. Here's about where the trailhead is. And just in case it's not marked, I determined the waypoint for that particular, or GPS coordinates for that particular trailhead so I could go to it, which I needed because it wasn't exactly the way I thought it would be. And so I had my large scale map to give me an idea of it at home. And then I found, I did my mapping at home in the seven and a half minute series to pick my route into some of these lakes. And then the third thing was, is okay, you know, is there a plenty, is there any place to camp? Usually there is, but not always. And so I wanted to find out what I had coming at me. So I used Google earth. And you mentioned that too, Google earth pro, which is a cost of thing. And I was able to zoom in on one end of the lake and went, well, there's a perfect place to camp, and it would be away from where anybody else wanted to camp. So I was able to go right there. And so three things all at once, the GPS, the compass, the map, you know, all comes into play. You know, one thing that would really help people learn map navigation and maybe get them, kind of put a fire in them, because it is an old skill. And some people think, well, why do we need that these days? Well, we've already listed some of those regions. or some of those reasons why we need a paper map. But are you familiar with geocaching?
Katie
Yeah, I've done it a couple times.
Mike
Okay, yeah. That's a great way to learn how to use your GPS if you've never used one in the past, is to go and find those caches. For people that may not be familiar with that, it's geocaching.com. You can learn all about it there. But basically, it's a high-tech treasure hunt. Sometimes they'll use trails, but most often it's roads or someplace you can hike or walk to. And then you'll use the coordinates they give you to find out particular cash, you know, and usually it's got a little notebook in it and a stub of pencil or something. And you, you know, I was here on such and such a date, that kind of thing, put it back in the, in the, using a waterproof container. So, but it's, it's just, it's something we're really get off on it. It's actually kind of an offshoot or related to orienteering, which was still is a sport in the U.S. You can get to the website, there's orienteeringus.com. Basically, you get a paper map and a compass, and they tell you that at certain places you're going to find a checkpoint, maybe like a GPS cache, for example. And so it's basically a race, though. It's not a, you know, did I find them all? It's you have to race to these caches or these waypoints, prove you were there, and then you continue on. They pick the course, then you get to the end of the finish line. But basically, it's a wilderness race when it comes down to it. And actually the last three years in a row, it was won by a gal. I can't remember her name. Yeah.
Katie
Yeah, I found that geocaching is a great way to get to know your local area too because it takes you to a lot of places that you wouldn't normally think to go. Maybe just parks or things near you because most people tend to hide them in places that are nice to go. Yeah. The one thing that I found hard about geocaching, I'm not sure if it would be the same way for the orienteering course, like the race that you mentioned, is that sometimes you've gotten to the right place and it still might take you a long time to find the cache, even if you're within five feet of it, because a lot of them are kind of small and hidden. And so sometimes I wish more of them were a little bit more obvious because you question yourself for a while. You might stand up for 20 minutes wondering, I'm not sure if I'm at the right spot. And really it's just, you know, under a rock or something that you don't see.
Mike
Well, you know, sometimes they aren't concealed like that. And for the reason is is that nobody will mess with it
Katie
right yeah the ones in town are usually pretty small and discreet
Mike
and sometimes there's a there's a lot of humor in it too I found one once time was practicing gps with my stepdaughter and my wife and and we had and they'll name them but this one was named pineapple okay so we found it and basically when we found it what it was was a plastic pineapple hanging from a pine tree a pineapple so it was a lot of fun
Katie
maybe a quick side tangent here, but have you ever found one without looking? Like I've come across some before just out places and you're just like, what's this box sitting here? You open it up and you realize it's a geocache and sure enough you open up the map and you're like, yep, there's supposed to be one right here. But it's happened once or twice to me that I found a geocache that I wasn't looking for.
Mike
You know, one really good tool if you want to learn map navigation, there's an old book out there. I think mine was published, I don't know, probably 50 years ago originally. It's called Be expert with map and compass it's by Bjorn kellestrum and Karina jilliston elgin that he passed away and his wife came out with a second edition and it is a guidebook basically it was designed as a guidebook for orienteering it's quite a word engineering but it goes into incredible detail about how to read a topographical map there's there's tutorials in there you know there's even a fold out at least in my copy in my edition there's a fold out topographical map that you use for practice at home. So you know what all those little signs and icons and everything means. And it's quite detailed. Tell you how to use a base plate compass, an orienteering compass. So it's well worth checking out. Be expert with math and compass. It's the only one that's got that title. So you don't have to learn how to spell the jar in Kajelstrom or whatever it is.
Katie
Yeah, I'll link that in the show notes too so people aren't trying to Google that name or anything. Yeah, and I think that's something to mention too is that I'm no expert on paper map navigation. I've done a little bit of it, but there's really no substitute for just going out and practicing it because you can read all you want about it. But there's a lot of things I know in theory that I've never actually gotten to put to the test, and I'm not sure how well I would actually do in a real situation. So, I mean, getting a map and a compass and just practicing by going around and trying to get to places is really the only way to get better at it.
Mike
Yeah, that builds your backcountry confidence. I always know where I am. I'm not really lost, as I said in the beginning. And it helps you find some places, as I mentioned before, a number of times that don't get fished very often. Nobody goes there. Nobody visits them. I know one particular string of lakes where I live, and the lower lake is accessible by a half-mile trail. And it's got eastern brookies in it. You know, it gets visited a lot. And it gets a lot of pressure, which is good because the brookies need that pressure. And then about three quarters of the mile, you come to the second lake. And it's got better camping spots. And it's much more scenic. There's a mountain in the background. But then the third lake is accessible cross-country only of a very brushy creek draw. There's not even fish in this field. Nobody even goes there, you know. Well, I always do fishing because I heard it was pretty good fishing. And so I sat down with a map and compassed me. There's got to be another way in there. I am not going to attempt that brush and draw. You know, there's got to be another way. So I sat down with a map and compassed it home and the GPS and found a route in. It was only like three quarters of a mile up a main road, up a main water service road, you know. So I got in up there, and we camped there for a couple of nights. We caught one brook trout after another. And there was a real cliffy on one end, and on the one end there, where it's real cliffy, runs a national scenic forest trail. And so we were, one morning, we were sitting and fishing, and we heard, you hear voices, of course, over the distance of like that quite easily. And there was two people up on this national recreation trail that were kind of peering over the edge of us. And we could hear them talking. How'd they get down there? I don't know. It's all cliffy here. We can't get down there this way. And so I smugly enjoyed my fishing.
Katie
Right. Yeah, it seems like all the best lakes are usually ones that are not at the end of a trail.
Mike
Yeah, exactly.
Katie
Those ones are just too, I mean, it doesn't really matter how long the trail is. I mean, people are willing to hike a long, long way if there's a trail there. And understandably, I mean, you don't have to worry about where you are. You can just follow the trail and eventually you'll get there. And there's plenty of people who can do eight, nine miles in a day without a problem and get back home before dark. But if you go a mile or two off of an established trail, suddenly no one wants to go there.
Mike
Yeah, exactly. I use a Garmin Fortrex 101. It's just a wearable on my wrist GPS. It doesn't have a map or anything. But usually I'm working off a paper map anyway. I have upgraded that now. I've got an eye hike on my iPhone, and I'm anxious to get out and try that and see how that works. But the old Garmin Fortrex 101, I mean, that was originally designed for runners. And outdoorsman just picked it up and said, all I need is a waypoint. And I want to mention, too, along with GPS, you know, you can get GPS smartwatches and, you know, you can get the programs for your phone. And, you know, if you're a hunter, you might want Onyx and iHike, for example, you know, so that you've got all the resources available to you. You've got property boundaries and, you know, each one has its own uses, as you mentioned on the article that I talked about a few minutes ago. So you've got a lot of advantages with just a wrist health. But with the other ones, you know, you've got, even if you've got a map that you're looking at, you know what your location is on the map. There's some differences when you get in the field, as we talked about in the beginning. Get out in the fields, things start looking different.
Katie
Yeah, so what would you say are the main benefits of digital? Because I assume most people will be primarily using digital. I think most people would probably consider paper maps as a backup. in case digital fails, but myself included, I always go for digital first if that's an option. Pull that out. It's a lot quicker and, you know, quicker and easier, basically.
Mike
Yeah, it is. It is. And the only drawback there, well, a couple different drawbacks, but one is the scale. You can't, you know, see very much area, you know, but if you've got a paper map with your large scale or you've already done some study at home and you already know what to expect. But the advantages of it, you know, it's all in one, you know, especially if it's on your phone I mean it's a phone like I talked about before it's a phone it's a camera it's a note taker it's an emergency locator the disadvantages of course as we mentioned you know electronics do fail they get sat on dropped in the stream as you said batteries go dead gee I thought I had spare batteries yeah and you think you're prepared I went I hiked into a lake last summer and it was pouring down rain the way all the way in and I got in there and I looked at my hiking partner and I said you know what I didn't pack my fire start and stuff I don't have any matches. Usually I've got redundant fire starters. I've got matches. I've got a couple of, you know, I've got one lighter, so on and so forth. But we got a fire starter, and it just shows you how ingenious you have to be back there in the backcountry. We started a fire with his Piso lighter. He had a little Piso thing. We used that to start a fire. We got it started. The disadvantage was we had to keep the fire going the whole two days we were there.
Katie
He didn't want it to go out.
Mike
He didn't want it to go out. That was tough.
Katie
Yeah, I think another thing that I like about digital that you can do somewhat on paper, but it's limited is the waypoint functionality. You can mark things on a paper map quickly in whatever custom way you want, which is great. But I also don't want to just put things on paper map willy-nilly because I can't get them off again unless it's in pencil. Whereas on a phone, I can mark anything that's even of mild interest to me. I can mark it with a waypoint, give it a name and stuff like that. And if I come back later and don't want it anymore, I can just delete it and it's gone. Whereas a paper map, I want to keep my writing limited to the things I really care about having on my map. And, you know, with a phone, you can color code things to have different symbols, things like that, which is a quick and easy way to add lots of waypoints that you can then filter through later, which I think is a big advantage to having that system.
Mike
I think there's a lot of, you know, some incredible advantages to the digital and having it, you know, on your phone or whatever, or an annual GPS. The thing to remember is the GPS was designed to do one thing, and that's to set waypoints and help with navigation. That's the only thing it was meant for. When I first got into GPS, I bought a very expensive Garmin unit. It cost me over $500 probably 10 years ago. And I don't know what it would be today, but it had bells and whistles like you would believe. It would do everything, including fried breakfast, I think. But, yeah, I didn't need all that. I found out in using it, I used to plot routes. I used to set waypoints, but I never really used all the bells and whistles. So it's something to think about when you go out and you want to buy a GPS. You know, more money is better probably, but are you going to use all the better stuff? Probably not. At least I did.
Katie
That's a good point.
Mike
And then I had it go bad on me, and all my waypoints are in there and everything. And so I had to get those off, and that wasn't too bad. But one of the functions went bad, and I called up Garmin. I said, okay, what do I do with this? Well, you can send it in and we'll repair it. What's the cost to repair? $150. Well, I got the Fortrex for $125. And all I needed to do was waypoints, and it does more than that, you know? So it's just all that is to remember that maybe if you don't need all the bells, if you do get them, but you pay a price for them, and maybe it is worth them.
Katie
Yeah, I think that's actually something I mentioned in that article you were talking about. Between the two programs I use on my phone, at least, are OnX and Gaia. And I like Gaia at home more because there's tons of different layers I can I can really get into the weeds turning turning layers on and off changing the transparency doing this and that but in the field it's too much like I don't have time to go find the one out of 200 layers I need to turn it on and off and so in the field I use on x more and I share the waypoints between the two I'll export my Gaia waypoints before I go out into on x but in on x it's just a tap tap tap between a hybrid a topo and a satellite view. And that's what I want when I'm out in the field, because I don't want to have to go find the satellite layer, one of the 10 satellite layers that are available, and then turn the transparency up and things like that. I just want to, with one tap, get that up. And so I think there's also some benefit to knowing which ones are better in the field and which ones are better at home. Because at home, I like those bells and whistles. In the field, I don't want the bells and whistles. I just want the info I want to have at that moment.
Mike
Yeah, I think it's wise to have a couple of apps for that purpose. I mean, if you've got the memory, why not? I mean, apps don't take up much memory anymore.
Katie
So what are you using more between, well, I guess between paper and digital and also within the digital world? What are you using more, your GPS or your phone?
Mike
Well, right now I'm in a transition. As I mentioned, I just got a GPS program for my phone. There's a little story. When I originally started using it, I used a particular app that was only 32-bit, and now they've gone to 64-bit and gone to iPads and phones, so they're not updating that app anymore. And my Mac, once it's updated, doesn't handle anything under 64-bit anyway, so it became obsolete. So basically, so now they've come out with it just for phones and for iPads, for tablets and whatnot, rather than update the old one. So I'm transitioning to that. For all the reasons that you brought up, it's easy. It's less you have to fuss with. And most of the time it's going to be sufficient. But on those rare occasions where you get stuck someplace, it's just good to know that paper map is stuck away someplace.
Katie
So you would consider digital as kind of your first go-to for a quick answer. But paper, it's still important to have those skills in case of digital failure, basically. Okay. Now, do you have any specific tips with digital navigation? Like, you know, your phone tells you you're in a certain spot or your GPS tells you you're in a certain spot. Do you have any tips for actually navigating from point A to point B using digital apart from just, you know, pointing at the direction you want to go and walking? You know, are you using the satellite view a lot or are you using the topo view more?
Mike
Well, like I said, I'm in transition there, so I'm just learning about the bells and whistles on the phone. You know, but I would say I would definitely transition. I would definitely prefer the digital. Yeah, I don't. There are advantages. And the paper map is basically a backup anymore or a home planning tool. So I know exactly where I'm going. As far as navigating the waypoint, I mean, you know, you just go to it. It's got an arrow and you follow the arrow. and then it tells you when you get there.
Katie
So, so are you practicing with your paper maps much outside of like actual, you know, you're in the back country and using it, or are you, basically you use it enough in the back country that you don't need to practice it at homeas much?
Mike
Oh, I don't need to practice it at home. No, I've been for years. I've been using paper maps. I am an old man. So I've been using paper maps to navigate for, I don't know, probably 30 years, 35, 40 years.
Katie
Well, just to finish up, do you happen to have any stories about a time you did get lost or temporarily misplaced?
Mike
Well, just the one, the Hazel Lake thing. Just the Hazel Lake. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have GPS, didn't have a map along. I thought I knew where I was going and I didn't. Never left home without a map after that.
Katie
Fair enough. I've had a couple of moments where I'm turned around and would consider myself somewhat lost for maybe up to 20 to 30 minutes, and it's not a good feeling.
Mike
Well, another thing about if you're doing your homework at home, too, and setting your waypoints at home on the map, then you can always pull up the map, and you can pinpoint where you're at. You know, that's a big advantage of digital is you can drop up in there, you know, on a digital on the screen, and then you can bring out the map, and then you use your program, your GPS, you know, with that particular waypoint, and just walk to it in the field. So it's already there. Your work is already done. But then you get confused when you pull out your map tool, which weighs maybe one gram, you know, and your paper map, which might weigh a gram, and your base plate compass is something you probably want to carry anyway, you know, so.
Katie
Right. You'll have to check out that maptools.com.
Mike
You know, another thing about them too, there's a lot of tutorials too. It's kind of like to be expert with map and compass book I mentioned earlier. There's a lot of tutorials on map tools about how to navigate using map or using compass and paper maps.
Katie
Okay. Yeah. to check that out and I think that would be useful like I said you've done a good job but it's hard over audio to really picture what's going on so I think having you know having a either a book or a video to show you what to do is a big step forward.
Mike
Oh there's so much information online too you know so much information that's available from Google and then YouTube you know YouTube this past couple years has gotten hugely popular I mean some people they don't even Google it anymore they YouTube it
Katie
Right. Well, yeah, so fast and easy.
Mike
I haven't actually looked on YouTube for backtracking navigation. I'm not just there.
Katie
Yeah, I'm sure there's so many resources there that are, you know, can answer questions in just a couple minutes.
Mike
Oh, yeah. I'm mechanically challenged. So I go to YouTube to figure out how to, you know, fix something. And it works quite well.
Katie
Right. Well, I just have to ask, how's Grover doing?
Mike
Oh, he's doing great. He's getting pretty fat, though. Yeah, both. I think I've gained 10 pounds over the winter and he's probably gained 20. And even the poodles gained five pounds.
Katie
Well, hopefully I'll have a chance this coming summer to work that off.
Mike
Well, and you know where I live too. I mean, it's a hundred yards and I'm in the woods. So, and it goes right up the, right up the mountain. So.
Katie
Yeah, we've, we've been talking a lot since I talked to you last about how someday we'll be, like I said, we're not zoned for it right now, but if we were zoned for it, I think we'd already have a goat.
Mike
yeah yeah well get a big one you need a big one
Katie
well Mike I'll let you get going to enjoy your evening but I really appreciate you coming on and hopefully we'll have a chance to reconnect this summer and maybe talk about some adventures we've been on and…
Mike
hopefully this will as I mentioned earlier just kind of kind of put a bug under somebody and get out there and learn it's it's an old skill but you need to know it you're really if you're committed to backcountry and backcountry navigation and getting out in the woods you just need to do that.
Katie
Yeah, yeah I think one last thing to mention is is that it's easy to practice because you've got that digital you know you've got your phone in your pocket to fix it if you mess up. You know you you can afford to mess up when you've got that backup so it's okay to go out and just try and you might not end up where you thought you would but you've got you've got an answer in your pocket to to fix it if you need to.
Mike
Yep exactly. I think one of the most powerful things with the the digital you know the handheld GPS that have the maps you know, an iPhone or, you know, smartphones that have maps is the ability just to be able to see exactly where you're going, especially once you've loaded up a waypoint or you put a waypoint there. Like you say, I want to go back to that spot. That was interesting. I want to check that out. You know, I've used that a lot of hunting too. You mentioned being out in the plains and was it Colorado, I think you said? Yeah. Yeah. And there's been times where I've done that. I just just use the GPS just to, and the map encompass where the map might make a mark. This is where the animal is. I got to go back and get help. But most of what I take out is parted out anyway.
Katie
Yeah, it's the same here. We mark a lot of places. Even if it's just, hey, this is where we crossed the fence. Like for that antelope hunt, we were crossing fences. And, you know, this is a place we can cross.
Mike
This is where I fished a year ago at this time. And this is what I, you know. So you can use a note function for that, too. You just keep logs. Digital and computers have opened up an incredible amount of information for us. It's just at our fingertips, you know, and of course, I don't even tell anybody about that.
Katie
All right, Mike. Well, I appreciate it. And thanks so much for all the info you've shared. I'll share a couple of those things you mentioned in the show notes, too, so people can find them pretty easily. But yeah, I mean, thanks for taking the time again. I appreciate you coming back to that second time.
Mike
Oh, yeah, no problem. I enjoy it. Yeah. Love to share.
Katie
All right. Well, you have a good evening, and I'll be in touch with you soon.
Mike
Okay, Katie. Thank you.
Katie
All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Remember to head over to the website, fishuntamed.com, for all episodes, show notes, blog posts, everything else. If you've got a minute or two, leave a rating or review on iTunes. And if you're looking for me on social media, you can find me at fishuntamed on Instagram or under my name, Katie Burgert, on Go Wild. And that's all for this week, but I'll be back here in two weeks, and I'll see you guys then. Bye, everybody.
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