[pct-l] Jim still has the best answer :)

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

About the no compass thing, let me just add a little here.

I'm not advising anyone to leave one home. I'm just saying that I  
sent mine home after a long period of not using it and was fine.

I have been hiking with people many times who have had a GPS. We've  
stood there looking at it and it's saying the trail is over there but  
we're not believing it. Or else we're standing there looking at it  
and it's saying the trail is over there and we're believing it but  
plain as day I can see the trail is right over there and nobody is  
believing me. So I follow them into oblivion until they say hey Diane  
maybe you were right and the trail was over there.

A compass or a GPS is worthless without the ability to make good  
decisions. I got lost twice because of bad decisions. A compass would  
not have helped me.

The trail is well marked. There are extra markings in the form of  
ducks or sticks laid out to spell H2O or to make little arrows.  
People have written arrows with sharpies on things. There are  
footprints all over the trail and the snow. Sometimes you even  
recognize who they are by the tread.

I recommend having better maps in the Sierra because of the snow. You  
might like to have a compass there to go with your better maps. But,  
it seemed to me the hard places to navigate were the little micro- 
decisions. The forks in the trail, the turns that aren't described,  
the small things that don't show on the map, the places where the  
trail is going south for a brief spell. For those things I relied on  
other tools.


Books I've written:
~ Piper's Flight
~ Adventure and Magic
~ Santa Barbara Hikes