[pct-l] navigational aids

[Halfmile]

Kevin,
You are correct that maps often have trails marked incorrectly,
although usually (but not always) it's within a few hundred feet of
the correct location and only people with a gps usually notice those
kind of small errors. Sometimes maps are outdated or sometimes
mapmakers just get it wrong and you occasionally see some pretty big
errors.

All my tracks and the maps made from them come from a GPS attached to
the shoulder strap of my pack recording the exact location of the
trail as I hike usually at 2 second intervals. I have re-hiked a
number of sections of trail multiple times and I am always amazed by
the GPS accuracy. My tracks are almost always within 50 feet when I
hike the trail a 2nd time and usually twice that accurate or better.
I'm not perfect and I am using a consumer grade GPS, so maybe there
are some errors I don't know about, but I don't think very many.

2010 was the fist year I had maps available for the entire PCT (this
has been a four year project, so far) and I have been very please with
the reaction from hikers who have used them. Three time PCT hiker
freebird recently called my maps "The most accurate that I've seen so
far" in one of his wrap up journal entries here:
http://trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=331822

-Halfmile



On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Kevin Cook <hikelite at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you look at the tracks from folks like Halfmile,
> there are always spots where it appears they are off route. I suspect the
> trail is marked wrong on the map. Since I started carrying a GPS into the
> backcountry, I've found this happens pretty often.