Spent $40 on a printed map set for the Wind River Range and it saved my trip

I was planning a 5-day loop near Cirque of the Towers and figured my phone with downloaded maps would be fine. Halfway through the second day, my phone got soaked in a sudden downpour and died completely. I mean, I was totally turned around without it. Luckily, I had those paper maps in a zip-lock in my pack, and the detail on them was way better than my app anyway. Has anyone else had a close call that made you switch back to carrying a physical map?

2 comments

2 Comments

miles7984d ago

Oh perfect, the classic "phone becomes a fancy rock" trick. Happened to me on a trip up north, but I was dumb enough to not even have a paper map as a backup. Had to use the moss-on-trees method, which mostly just led me to more moss. @claire958, those old forest service maps are basically art. My buddy's fancy app didn't show the new washout that sent us on a two-hour detour, but his wrinkled paper map had it marked with a little dotted line like it was no big deal.

claire9584d ago

That exact thing happened to me on the Teton Crest Trail. My power bank got wet and my phone was just a brick for two days. What kind of printed map set did you get, like a specific brand or from a guide service? I've been using the same old forest service ones forever.