How and Why to Make Your Own Topographic Route Map for Mountaineering, Backpacking, and Hiking
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I make a lot of climbing and hiking plans. And I think the nature of those plans have followed a fairly traditional arc for anyone who has gotten serious about mountain climbing: I began in my local mountains, then expanded to more and more “serious” locations within the country, then it was to the great ranges. It all go progressively more involved.
My last big plan (as of this writing) was to attempt an unclimbed peak in the Nepalese Himalaya.
And, now that I’m a dad teaching some of this stuff to my kids, my excursions have returned to being far more local and within the abilities of small bodies.
But all those lessons I’ve learned from the big peaks are things I can take back and use - in the right dosing - on these more local forays into the wilderness.
And the truth is, I actually like the planning. It’s stimulating to try to plan a destination and a route and then figure out how to identify and mitigate risks. This planning part of climbing strongly engages my brain.
One of these lessons that I’ve learned, especially from trying to climb an unclimbed peak (so, everything is degrees of unknown), is the value of making my own maps. Obviously, that’s the topic of the video, and I don’t need to rehash the benefits I lay out in those four-plus minutes, but to expand on it just a little bit:
It’s the process - and the need to research the route and draw it in or find the right downloadable GPX file, the movement of my hand as I manipulate the virtual map (movement helps memory), and the visualization of the route - that helps me make better adjustments when I am in the field.
This isn’t one of those “paper map” versus “GPS” posts. Rather, it’s about the value of the process, itself, that I’m trying to express.
I’ve been in corporate America for a lot of years, too, and I used to be involved in strategic planning for businesses of all sizes. This is like that: it’s not about having a strategic plan at the end (or a map) it’s about thinking through the contingencies, and the artifact - the plan or the map - is just an excuse that demands of you that you do that thinking in order to produce it.
As I mention in the video, I use CalTopo and then move maps to my GPS device. Here are the links relevant to those:
You can get to the CalTop site here.
And you can find a video reviewing my GPS device, the Garmin InReach Explorer+, here.
...and a link to purchase the Garmin InReach Explorer+, here.
So, take a look and see if the process of making your own maps is something that you might find useful in your planning. It has helped me deal with the truly unknown as well as the very-well-known routes by helping me deal with unforeseen situations in both circumstances.