How many people can actually read a map these days?

Got a 25k map in front of me at the moment, getting excited planning tomorrow’s ride in the Black Mountains. I’ve had lots of riders at Afan ask me for directions after becoming “lost”, despite there being signs at every junction 🙂 And know plenty of riders who have never strayed from the safety of trail centres. But I don’t mind having the mountains to myself and think it’s their loss…

Maps are fab. Compasses are simple. GPS are really handy, especially for the route recording abilities. I love knowing how far, how fast etc.

On the whole maps vs GPS debate?? I work on a ship (you guessed from the user name right?). I drive the thing, so have seen the gradual change from paper charts to Electronic Charts. Despite having the usefulness of ECDIS fitted to all ships I’ve been on in the last 10 years, we still use the good old paper chart too. Big reliable and easy to read.

52 now and been able to read an os map for 44 years. My grandad was walking in the Dales and Lakes between the wars and generally mucking about outside all his life. He taught me the year he died. I always buy the relevant OS, if I go somewhere new to walk or ride. Still able to get out of the shite if it goes claggy with a map and compass. Like lots have said, map makes great reading especially if planning a new ride.
All that said I’m going to finally buy a Garmin before long, simply to log rides.

Learned to read maps when I was 13 on outward bound courses our school used to do, (Howtown & Thurston in the Lakes)
I still love to do ‘recce’ rides with just a map & have no idea how to use my Garmin Etrex except for how to get a grid ref!
OS maps rule.

I’m 56 btw.

Learned to read maps and use a compass in scouts. I subscribe to the OS Get a map service and regularly print out and laminate a map to take out on the trail. No better way to try out a new route, I love it. 😀

I love maps 🙂 I find I can map read easier with map and compass than using my GPS (used for just in case moments)but I would like to be a bit more confident.I also just look at maps whilst at home, I have memory map so I can look all over the place too 🙂
I used to go riding with 2 chaps they had no idea how to read a map but it was ok because 1 of them had GPS till the battery died, good job I had my map and compass, this chap did take a map once when we went to the white peak he couldnt find where we were so he passed me the map I too one look and handed his dark peak map back and got my own map out 🙄
40 female 🙂

(29)

27 and have been able to read a map for as long as I can remember. I hate the phrase map and compass though – compasses belong in your pack or pocket 99% of the time. Would happily not carry a compass anywhere where white out is unlikely.

From my experience (several years taking hiking groups out every weekend at uni) most people can read a map well enough to get around easy terrain.

Looks around smugly at the poor lost people with flat gps batteries. And reminds them what the real world is about

On a more down tone thought why learn to map read if all you do is ride trail centres.

Pitty on them all

Oh God yes, I agree – the overwhelming orgasmic joy of reading a map. The tactile thrill of running a finger over the paper and imagining the peaks and valleys it holds, the tiny symbols that only we special few can interpret

Of course, I was the world mapreading champion seventeen years running, so I’m better at it than all of you but well done for giving it a go

(I buy the wipe-clean ones these days, mind)

Oh, I’m 108

41 & I could read a map since I was 16 (Scouts & DofE to thank for that).

If you can’t read a map & you play outside then 1. You’re an idiot who deserves to get into trouble & 2. You’re an idiot.

I don’t have a lot of time for folk who venture into the Outdoors without the most fundamental of skills..

I love maps, could quite happily sit and “read” them for hours. I love to pick out star constellations too and orientate myself that way.

Got confusing 2 days ago in northern Scotland where the sky was so clear and the surrounds so dark that I had trouble picking out the constellations from the mass of stars not normally visible near towns and cities. Incredible, beautiful sight.

But yes, it saddens me that we seem to have become a nation of people addicted to GPS and able to “navigate” from A to B so perfectly yet without having any idea where A and B actually are or what is in between.

Yep, ex Queen Scout moi, love maps and marine charts

But yes, it saddens me that we seem to have become a nation of people addicted to GPS and able to “navigate” from A to B so perfectly yet without having any idea where A and B actually are or what is in between.

[citation needed]

Im 22 btw. Feel young in here 🙂 ! I suppose I did do Geography at Uni so that automatically means I should be a map reading (and colouring in) god.

I’m on old scout, best bit of education I have ever had: at 13 I could cook on a fire, climb mountains, plan expeditions, navigate, look after my patrol and generally look after myself. When I did a degree and I met guys who could wipe their arse and nothing more. They had reached adulthood without learning a single useful thing.

I now often sit in bed with an OS and read a map, rather than a book.

I have gps on my phone, but never use it other than satnav’ing car journeys.

I can read a map and enjoy reading them.

I am a Luddite when it comes to sat-navs when driving. I positively enjoy planning where I’m going and then getting there with the minimum map use, home or abroad.

When I’ve been somewhere I can generally find my way around there again if I ever go back.

When the satellites break down and the roads grind to a halt I’ll hopefully still be able to find my way home.

I tend to use a proper map for planning, but will upload it to my gps (which has os maps) so that it’s easier to follow the route on the go. I struggle to get a good picture of the area on the gps screen alone but combined with a proper map it does the trick for me.

I have been able to since i was about six. beavers, cubs, souts and now explorers. I’m also learning to be a glider pilot so navigation jumps to a whole new level in the air. The feel of my years old “chiltern hills east” OS map beside me righ now is unbeatable i know that my kids will be taught how to navigate, bushcraft etc. from an early age.

Crikey, theres alot of well read map readers who obviously like to take pride in looking down on us “none readers/believers”

I cant read a map (unless google maps counts?) and I really dont see why/how it would benefit me if I could.

I mean I live in a town, civilization. Most places I want to go tend to have sign posts. I know where work is, where my bathroom is, where the shops are etc.

If I want to go mtbing, I put my bike in the car and follow the signs to my local trail centre. Here, I follow the way marked trails until I get back to where I parked. Then I go home.

If I want to go wallking then I walk. On a footpath.

I like my life. I know what Im doing. Its safe and I always carry my mobile phone.

I dont get lost. I spend my time enjoying myself.

I am a modern man.

If I want a plug fitting to an electrical appliance then I phone the electrician. Thats what they’re there for.

Dont play the hero. Dont pretend to know what you’re doing with your maps and compasses and cairns. Its all guess work. It tends to be the folk like you that get into trouble. The mountain rescue is run by volunteers, they dont relish a call late on a sunday night to go and resuce a man at a top of a hill whos got lost in a badly folded A0 piece of paper.

Think on.

😆

I’m looking down on you from a 1000 metre contour line!

I have never used a map for off road rides. Don’t see the point when GPS is available. Have printed off a “route guide” for Long Mynd but already had vague knowledge of the area. Even for roads I mainly use sat nav.

I’m looking down on you from a 1000 metre contour line!

😀

If only I knew what that was

I have the whole set of 1.50.000 maps and also a whole set of 1 inch maps from the 60s they make great reading .Especially coupled with the gazetteer of the country giving me every place name on the 1 to 50 thou maps in the country

Davidtaylforth – your mind uses maps all the time! Mental Maps

I can, learned on D of E. Also learned that it rains a lot in the Lakes and that the Mosedale bridleway is more than a bit boggy. And little streams turn big when it rains a lot. I love looking at maps, especially of places I want to go to or have already been to but not had or needed a map at the time.

I teach geography at a comprehensive secondary school in West Yorkshire and all year 8 students learn how to read OS maps but we also link this to GPS/GIS mapping as many now have some sort of mapping on SMART phones. I feel it is important they understand how to read a sheet map as a start point.

We have also just got back from a Bronze D of E practice where 39 students, from all backgrounds, successfully navigated using a map and compass. Sadly we do find the call of the x box and other indoor activities stop many from heading outdoors and experiencing the countryside. I suppose you have to accept it isn’t for everyone?

Scouts and family got me out there Age 46

Definite map lover here, nothing better than researching an area planning routes followed by on the ground navigation, recognising features and landmarks. It’s a rewarding part of the challenge. I use the modern versions, it’s great you can get OS maps online and scroll around, upload tracks etc but there is nothing like a paper map. I use gps extensively when sailing, having an accurate location with chart overlay is a big aide to safety at night or in bad weather, on land it’s not necessary for the walking and riding I do so I don’t use it.

love maps and reading them, self taught on 1:25K so struggle a bit adapting to 1:50k but can cope. 🙂

Geek alert, just happens I’ve two map photos from last weekend in the Lake District. Long story as to why they were taken …

[/url] Helvelyn[/url] by JambalayaPhoto[/url], on Flickr[/img]

[/url] Sca Fell Pike[/url] by JambalayaPhoto[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Can’t use a compass to save my life but always take a map out with me and somehow have managed to find my way back. Always have a GPS with me together with spare batteries. It may involve tears and swearing but it’s a learning curve.

I love my maps – they’re a historical document and have opened my eyes to so much local history etc. Even have a framed map on the wall. 😳

Tables are always covered with maps or bits that I’ve printed or photocopied. Along with books obviously. 😳

Ahh maps…

Got more than a few OS Landrangers that have long since had their red covers ripped from my hands. All of them have been soaked and dried countless times, smudged with the residue of countless sandwiches, peat and even the odd blood stain. I can even see daylight through many of the folds.

They are like old friends and I can’t bring myself to bin them 😉

I love Tracklogs and use if for planning but maps rock.

I heard someone say the countryside is a “closed book” to people who can’t read an OS map,

I did. To clarify this rather curt remark:

Some of my friends, well educated people, do not read or understand topo maps. When I walk with them they are totally dependant on me to nav. They don’t do anything unfamiliar for fear of getting lost.

But being so familiar with maps I never feel this even when visiting somewhere new. What I find intuitive, they find baffling. Few people seem so adventurous that they will explore unknown and unsigned places alone. I think understanding the land from maps opens a door to exploration.

Maps?
Who really needs such modern new fangled things?
I navigate using the sun ,the moon and the stars,following the wind and the birds, reading the signs of nature.
I actually climbed Scafell Pike once when in fact I was trying to climb Pillar and I used to be in the Scouts.
Time for a classic

Not read all the thread (yet), but the mention of an ex-trailquest organisor in the OP reminded me of this:

Did a TQ at the weekend. There was only 1 competitor under the age of 40. The future of the sport doesn’t look all that bright (though the youngster did at least thrash all us old blokes).

Maps rock. 50 years old. I used to be a cartographer, but I’m now running DoE in local school and i am about to unleash the pleasures of the OS onto a whole new bunch of teenagers.

Maps make me excited in a schoolboy kind of way. Always have. I’m quite good at map reading but not so good at remembering to take them with me! I did 88km on saturday, planned the route in fine detail on memory map, printed it off and then left it behind. Navigated from memory and experience and got it spot on. Phew!

Old Army truism

Never trust an officer with a map.

I was obsessed with maps as a kid, as I was with weights and measures. When I have kids I will make bloody sure they can read maps; the thought of people who can only rely on gps on their phone is upsetting.

Purely for decorative purposes you understand…

About 30x Explorers, 20x Landrangers, 30x IGN Bleu and 20x Michelin.
I love maps.
In fact the reason I am where I am today is because when I was 13 I decided I wanted to be a Cartographer and so planned my education around becoming a chartered surveyor. Sad I know 😉