Jeremy Mortimer wrote:
funkraum wrote in

Agreed. But most useful in my case for the sort of trip when one
-thinks- one knows where one is going. I do not become lost if I (a)
totally unfamiliar or (c) Can navigate through the area with my eyes
closed.

You still need a map. And translating from a ski station plan to a map is
generally non-trivial, to put it mildly.


Agreed. Was speaking in general terms concerning GPS and GPS + moving
map type apparatus.


The number of people who think GPS -is- navigation rather than just a
way of checking you are correct make for some great Darwin-award type
stories, however.

I'll have to consider myself a Darwin award candidate then. I usually carry
a GPS in the mountains, and consider that there are some things you can do
with a GPS that you can't do with a map and compass, or at least not at all
easily. A good example is navigating across a crevassed glacier in fog.
Even if you know your starting position you have to follow such a
convoluted path that dead reckoning (pace counting etc.) is useless. In
fact a GPS is a very useful tool in any conditions with reduced visibility.


What is wrong with standing there, shrugging shoulder with palms
facing upwards mouthing "Where the hell are we ?"

It's also pretty cool to be able to calibrate your speedometer, check how
fast you ski, etc. I recorded 85kph on the schuss to get back to the
Aeroski lift at Tignes, and I'm not a fast skier.

I also used my GPS on a recent trip to S. Africa to identify mountains and
settlements in the Sahara as I flew over, which was extremely cool. But I
digress....

Looks like I will have to purchase. I just wish I had had one ten
years ago ... twenty years ago ... then returning to obscure places
already visited or recording historical information would have been
the work of a moment. Instead of "keep going past the third fork in
the track and then after the seventh tree follow the contour till you
reach a ..." it could have been just plain Lat/Long.

I hope they make them in discrete vest-pocket and chain time-piece
look-alikes so that a Gentleman may discreetly check his location,
while distracting his audience with a mumble on the horrors of
modernity.