High Sierra Topix

How do you carry your topo maps? Do you keep them on your person or in your pack? If they are in your pack, can you get to them without taking your pack off?

I wear convertable pants with cargo pockets while hiking. My useable map for the days in carried in one of the cargo pockets where I can reach it easily.

Gary C wrote:
I wear convertable pants with cargo pockets while hiking. My useable map for the days
in carried in one of the cargo pockets where I can reach it easily.

Same here in a ziplock bag, but sometimes it is in the side of my camera waist pack, the
only thing with this method is it easily slips out when going up hill over rocky/bushy terrain.

I carry them on my person, and they need to be easily accessible, as I look at them a lot, depending on terrain. I carry a Tom Harrison map, and home printed USGS 7.5 maps in areas I feel I need more detail. I keep my maps in my back pocket. I have had my map fall out of my pocket before I study topos so much that I could pretty much find my way out of anywhere if I had to

I'm nearly identical to Sparky. For an overnighter or 3 day trip thats on one or two 7.5' Topos, I use those. For longer trips or those ones that fall right on the corners of the 7.5 minute series, I bring maps like the Tom Harrison Maps as a regional map and some hand printed topos for cross country sections. I keep them in a ziplock or two. I keep the map Im using at the time in a pocket either on my shorts or in my hiking shirt. The rest I keep in an external pocket on the back of my pack.

gary c. wrote:I wear convertable pants with cargo pockets while hiking. My useable map for the days in carried in one of the cargo pockets where I can reach it easily.

Exactly the same for me, but in a ziploc bag as well.

i carry backup copies in the pack for the area. also, another set is ziplocked in my cargo pants pocket. And also loaded on the GPS.

I carry a Tom Harrison map as my base map, augmented by 7.5 min topos for XC sections. Maps go into Gregory pocket office (high tech version of Colin Fletcher's office on the yoke). Pocket office also holds wilderness permit, notebook, pen and compass. It's kind of unwieldy and weighs almost 4 oz, but everything is kept close at hand. I wish that there was a lighter replacement, but all that I have seen are made to hold stuff instead of maps. Don't carry any backups, since all of the group have their own maps and/or GPS.

I carry my maps in the top pocket. If I have to I am able to get them out of there without taking the pack off.

However, Most of my destinations are fishing spots and I will have lived on the maps the weeks before a trip. Even some of the cross-country jaunts into spots have been memorized and Google Earth consulted so that it all seems familiar. I usually consult the map for the next day in camp the night before.

The 2 times (in 40 years) that I have been lost involved taking the pack off, fishing, consulting the map, walking for an hour and then repeating the process.

I carry maps in my pocket, sealed in a zip-lock bag. When off-trail through difficult country, I actually have the maps in my hand a lot. I am old, and memory is failing. I do not seem to remember more than a few footsteps ahead! Another method for those of us who have poor memories, is to consult the map, look where you want to go, find a landmark to head for, and then get the map out again when you reach that landmark. I aslo draw on my maps as I go. Be aware that a map printed on regular paper on your home printer will likely run if it gets wet. USGS maps are somewhat waterproof. They my get soft, but the ink does not run. I have had home- printed maps in my pocket get sweaty and smear really bad.