Relatively recently I went hiking overnight with a small group of millennials. The leader eschewed a topo map in favor of her cell phone. I had brought a waterproof topo printout which the leader frowned on as constituting excessive weight. I may be outmoded but my perspective was that millennials are fearless.
I’m a leader with a group similar to scouts. We were on a trip with boys and leaders from several troops. The trail lead told us he had a map. Several miles in i asked to see it and he shows me his Apple watch with some squiggly lines on it.
He told me we were hiking 11 miles. Since his entire map was on an1” square he couldn’t really make out the 29 mile distance.
Lesson learned. Paper map and don’t trust millennials.
Ultralight weenies. While admittedly back in the dark ages we carried too much stuff, the trend in recent fads is so minimalist they get into trouble frequently. I would never go anywhere on foot or motorized without paper map backup. Modern tech is great but. Things that don’t require batteries to operate. A zipper pull thermometer, or aneroid barometer/altimeter. Smart phones are amazing, but they hork out when needed most. The weather app on my phone shows 10 days worth of data. But if the cell signal is lost it just deletes everything and shows blank.
I’d like to find a standalone topo map program that doesn’t require a signal for data.
“I had brought a waterproof topo printout which the leader frowned on as constituting excessive weight.”
A few grams?
L
“I may be outmoded but my perspective was that millennials are fearless.”
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Fearless? Possibly…or too inexperienced to know better, and too arrogant about their modern tools to even have a Plan B…IOW, STUPID. No, not all of them, but very disproportionately compared to prior generations.
” The leader eschewed a topo map in favor of her cell phone.”
That should have been a clue that they were idiots. She probably couldn’t read a topo map. Topo was all we had back in the day.