From: Alan R. Hamm (ahamm@alanhamm.com)
Date: Wed Jul 17 2002 - 14:33:37 CDT
During my 702 trek at Philmont, I carried a GPS which I kept on for most of the trip (while hiking). Each evening I would review the next days route with the crew leader and the next days navaguesser and upon retiring to my tent, proceed to plot out waypoints from the large scale maps.
For the record, I did this mostly for my own enjoyment and curiosity, not primarily as a tool for navigating by the crew. I was prepared to allow them to get lost (within reason) before I started asking too many questions. Amazingly, we never got lost, which was good.
Anyway, to my amazement, the topo maps are WAY OFF. I believe my GPS is pretty accurate using 12 satellites, most with very strong signals. I use it primarily for marine navigation and when I pre-plan waypoints from marine charts, I am usually right on. However, it was not unusual for the Philmont maps to be consistently 1/3 of a mile off on trail locations. And of course there are about 10% of the actual switchbacks shown on the trails indicated on the Topo Maps. The software that came with the GPS has built in maps that can be uploaded which actually had some Philmont camps, some roads and major trails and most major streams. This information was far more accurate than the UTM information from the USGS maps.
I know that the scouts are in the process of updating their maps and I in fact saw some GPS data being taken at Fish Camp. My Garmin GPS actually leaves a "bread crumb" trail the whole time it is on. So I have a pretty accurate record of the trek we took (13FM) and the "exact" trail locations, again which differs greatly from the topo maps. In the right hands, this could be useful information, I think.
Does anyone know who is spearheading the updating of the maps? The last thing I want to do is enter the deep BSA Bureaucracy. I would imagine that there are several others out there, or going that could provide similar useful data. Any thoughts?
Alan R. Hamm, AIA
Principal
Alan Hamm Architects
ahamm@alanhamm.com
www.alanhamm.com
(301) 589-2691 phone
(301) 589-6314 fax
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