Old School Maps and Printing of Them

[Fozzy325]

Hi All,

The other day I was ripping overland and I found that my Gaia GPS device ran out of maps, I forgot to down load that area, so without a map and 1.5hrs away from a Cell phone signal I would have been F**ked. However; I was lucky enough to have gone out and printed several 1:50 000 maps from my local Map Store .

The other-thing I have noticed is that you are unable to zoom into say a 1:10 000, 1:25 000, or 1:50000 very well with the GPS maps,

I would recommend going to your local MAPstore and getting maps printed out for the areas you need and at least a 1:20 000 map for the hard areas.

 

[TerryD]

This has helped me before too. However my paper maps didn't show the complete trail I was on so there was still a fair amount of guess work involved.

Spending the time to double check your paper maps vs your route is a good idea.

Two is one, one is none!

 

[xplorr]

I haven't seen it mentioned much on OB, but this is why I upgraded from a free account on caltopo.com. You can export to a georeferenced PDF to use in the Avenza app. You can add tracks and routes and choose from other layers. You could print the PDF if you want a hard copy as well. Here is an example of default "MapBuilder Topo" base layer for north of Banff. From the Avenza app you can tap add map and scan the QR code to directly import it (warning, 75MB):


pdf link
(This link will eventually stop working but should be good for a few days.)

I use Gaia as primary, but feel much better with PDFs on phone and tablet as backup.

 

[Fozzy325]

I haven't seen it mentioned much on OB, but this is why I upgraded from a free account on caltopo.com. You can export to a georeferenced PDF to use in the Avenza app. You can add tracks and routes and choose from other layers. You could print the PDF if you want a hard copy as well. Here is an example of default "MapBuilder Topo" base layer for north of Banff. From the Avenza app you can tap add map and scan the QR code to directly import it (warning, 75MB):

View attachment 78088
pdf link
(This link will eventually stop working but should be good for a few days.)

I use Gaia as primary, but feel much better with PDFs on phone and tablet as backup.

Many thanks,

This is a new site I didn't know about.

 

[Lunch Box]

Maybe it's because I belong to a certain age group, but.......I never leave familiar ground without a paper map. Just makes me feel better.

(edited to add 'age' in there. Darn computerz.)

 

[Scotty_Dawg]

I have spent a lot of time in Northern Ontario where there is spotty if best cell phone reception. I have a Backroad Maps chip for my GPS which combines topo maps with road maps and shows many features and roads that are not on typical road maps, nor on GPS. It also shows crown land in Ontario, which is like BLM land down there in the States. The nice thing about that, for the most part in Northern Ontario camping on crown land is free, further down in Eastern Ontario, and central Ontario they sometimes require permits for camping on Crown. Further to this, Back Road Maps have laminated maps, and road atlases, which I have a whole slew that will take me all across the province. There is also a store which I frequent in Carleton Place, ON, which is called Pathfinder Maps which will print custom maps, not too cheap, around 45$ CAD starting, but will print layered maps with property lines, crown and public land and if you bring in your gps chip will even print waypoints and treks on a map which can be handy for secluded hunting / fishing, honey holes that you would never be able to find your way back to because of the vast amount of land crisscrossed by logging roads.
Being retired military, I like more than one source of navigation and hard copy maps are a must on board for me.

 

[Kevtd]

I cant recommend the back roads map book enough for anyone in Canada. They have different books for different regions or a Canada wide version. When I was scouting roads for a rally we had offline google maps, offline apple maps as well as a dedicated GPS unit. Road ended on all the digital units so we grabbed an old BC back roads book and sure enough there was the road. I have been sold on the hard copy maps ever since.

 

[Rbrand01]

Agree with all comments on this post - I am probably of similar "age group" :) and just like a hard copy map to cross reference with online maps... I purchased a full Gaia GPS membership and have been getting much more familiar with the features but will still carry a hard copy whenever possible.

 

[Trusty JK]

I agree with having a hard copy just in case, that is something I am now trying to practice. I paid for All trails subscription it seems pretty good, I'm actually going to print a couple out this weekend on larger paper. I hear a lot of people using Gaia maps.