Route Planning and Maps for the TGO Challenge

For my TGO online column this week I've written about how I planned the route for this year's TGO Challenge and what maps I carried. You can read the piece here.

Harvey Ultramaps reviewed for TGO

Harvey has launched a new series of mini maps called Ultramap. I've been looking at the Cairn Gorm one and have reviewed it for my column on the TGO website. You can read my thoughts here.

The Pleasure of Maps

Studying some maps for forthcoming ventures - of which more in a forthcoming post - and feeling excited I remembered this piece which I wrote for The Great Outdoors last year. I love maps!

Backpackers can find many items of gear exciting – tents and packs obviously but sometimes even utilitarian items like socks and base layers. For me though nothing comes close to a map for real exhilaration. Only a map can lead you through endless outdoor adventures both in reality and in your mind as you trace possibilities over the surface – where does this valley go, what’s over that pass, how easy is to climb that mountain? Journeys abound when you study a map. Not just journeys either. I love looking for possible camp sites – by that lake, on that col, maybe in that meadow. Sometimes the journeys and campsites go out into the real world, though many more stay as daydreams. And sometimes I find that going up that brush-choked valley was not a good idea or that the boggy bug-infested shores of a lake don’t make for a good camp site. Maps don’t tell you everything. Which is good. I don’t want my trips to be too predictable. But maps do give ideas and plans and that’s what’s exciting.

For the backpacker and walker the best maps are topographic of course, ones that show the shape of the land with contour lines (for which many thanks to mathematician Charles Hutton who came up with the idea on Schiehallion in 1774). Once you can read contours the landscape can be easily imagined in three dimensions and the shape of the hills and valleys visualised. Routes can be planned taking into account the elevation gain as well as the distance. Topographic maps are often beautiful as well with subtle shading and rich colours. In this respect the old Ordnance Survey 1 inch to the mile Tourist Maps are my favourites. Of modern maps the Harveys Mountain Maps are very aesthetically pleasing.

Walkers often think that there’s only a few map scales of use – 1:25,000, 1:40,000 and 1:25,000 – and when out in the wilds I think this is correct (though I have use 1:250,000 and even 1:600,000  when that’s all that’s been available). However for planning it’s often easier to see the whole of a walk on smaller scale maps. I still use the long-out-of date 1:100,000 Bartholmew maps for planning long walks in Scotland and recently I’ve been looking at some 1:250,000 Tom Harrison Recreation Maps of desert and mountain areas of the western USA for a forthcoming venture. But once outdoors, whether the Scottish Highlands or Death Valley, I want larger scale maps.

Of course these days maps are not just sheets of paper or plastic but also exist in digital form for use on computers whether desktop or phone. Maps in this form are very useful and I use them regularly. Instead of counting kilometre squares and contour lines to find distance and elevation gain I love just being able to draw my route and have the computer calculate these for me. But I still much prefer map sheets for their size. When someone invents a light compact rollout screen as big as an Ordnance Survey map I might change my mind but until then a big sheet easily beats a small screen. With maps spread out on the floor or the ground I can see the whole area and all the options. I find it easier to daydream over a big map sheet too.

Maps aren’t just for future trips either. They can bring back memories. Looking through my map collection for this piece I was distracted by many reminiscences as maps I hadn’t seen for years appeared – a stormy autumn traverse of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, leading a trek to Everest Base Camp, climbing Glittertind in Norway on skis, building igloos in Yellowstone National Park with Igloo Ed. Maps really are wonderful.

Harvey British Mountain Maps

My thoughts on Harvey British Mountain Maps have just appeared on the TGO website. http://www.tgomagazine.co.uk/gear-news/harvey-british-mountain-maps/

Map Decorations

Maps make great decorations. I’ve had various ones up on my office walls over the years, mostly stuck up with Blu Tack and often with pins poked in and lines scrawled on them – these are working maps. And in our hall there’s a framed OS 1:50,000 map of the local region that I look at regularly. 

Recently I was contacted by a company called Wallpapered.com about its bespoke map wallpapers and map canvases and offered one of the latter. The web site looked interesting so, intrigued, I asked for a canvas of my local area in green (other colours are available), which you can see above. The canvas is solidly mounted on board and looks really good. Various sizes are available, right up to 142.2 x 91.4cms . Mine is the 40.6 x 40.6 cm one.. The map is from the OS 1:50,000 – Wallpapered is an OS licensee. 

If you want something much bigger Wallpapered also offer wallpapermaps to any size. You could cover a whole wall or even a room with maps! I really like that idea. And the results would look much smarter than my stuck on maps – though I’d have to avoid the pins and pencil lines.

If you’re looking for some decorations or new wallpaper and fancy an outdoors theme Wallpapered is definitely worth a look.