les
Active member
Maps are a pretty fundamental element of any "exploration", road trip, hunt, etc. Yet, they're geting consistantly harder to find, and when you do find them, the quality/readability/durability has dropped off precipitously.
Being that I'm old enough to remember navigating before goolag maps was a thing, having watched Platoon Leaders over-rely on sketchy, new GPS systems, as well as having traversed areas where GPS was actively interferred with, and having lived in places where if you drove 5 miles in any direction out of town you were in a no-bullshit survival situation, I never go much of anywhere without a decent map.
USGS "transitioned" to digital primarily in 2009. You can still get paper topo maps, but it's a pain. And... it's the government. So...
The silver lining, however, is that through USGS (for the States) a PDF download of every map sheet is free, as opposed to the $15 + s/h for a paper copy.
Always in search of the perfect field map, last week I decided to try downloading the PDFs for 4 adjacent mapsheets of my local area, and then uploading them to an online Blueprint Service to print on Tyvek.
The result? 4 gorgeous mapsheets, in perfect 1:24k, on durable, waterproof Tyvek in fewer than 48 hrs, for less than USGS paper copies would have cost me. Food for thought if you've ever tried plotting points and routes on a wet paper map in the field.
Now... if anyone has any pull at all with USGS, I'd really appreciate them charting in 1:25k, like the rest of the 1st World. Some of us still walk, shoot, and estimate range in meters, and real protractors are designed for 1:25k, some with 1:24k as an afterthought.
Being that I'm old enough to remember navigating before goolag maps was a thing, having watched Platoon Leaders over-rely on sketchy, new GPS systems, as well as having traversed areas where GPS was actively interferred with, and having lived in places where if you drove 5 miles in any direction out of town you were in a no-bullshit survival situation, I never go much of anywhere without a decent map.
USGS "transitioned" to digital primarily in 2009. You can still get paper topo maps, but it's a pain. And... it's the government. So...
The silver lining, however, is that through USGS (for the States) a PDF download of every map sheet is free, as opposed to the $15 + s/h for a paper copy.
Always in search of the perfect field map, last week I decided to try downloading the PDFs for 4 adjacent mapsheets of my local area, and then uploading them to an online Blueprint Service to print on Tyvek.
The result? 4 gorgeous mapsheets, in perfect 1:24k, on durable, waterproof Tyvek in fewer than 48 hrs, for less than USGS paper copies would have cost me. Food for thought if you've ever tried plotting points and routes on a wet paper map in the field.
Now... if anyone has any pull at all with USGS, I'd really appreciate them charting in 1:25k, like the rest of the 1st World. Some of us still walk, shoot, and estimate range in meters, and real protractors are designed for 1:25k, some with 1:24k as an afterthought.
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