Walking Forum
Main Boards => General Walking Discussion => Topic started by: BuzyG on 20:41:58, 02/03/19
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Like many I love my OS maps. But I have always found them a little unwieldy out and about. And dare I say heavy, as it only there as a back up these days. So I was in the habit of printing and laminating maps for individual routes.. I have however recently discovered the little Yellow map series. 1:16000 scale OS data on neat folded and laminated sheets. I may be lucky but just two of these little gems cover all of Bodmin moor so now I just leave them in my bag for when I nip out for a mid week wonder. O0 .
Any one else have a favourite paper map?
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I’m very fond of the little booklets that A-Z make using OS mapping. Only available for National Parks and major trails I think. A large area in a small package and much more manageable than a massive sheet map.
For example the Coast To Coast one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coast-Adventure-Atlas-Geographers-Map/dp/178257168X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1551559869&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=coast+to+coast+map&dpPl=1&dpID=51oT4Pp3foL&ref=plSrch (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coast-Adventure-Atlas-Geographers-Map/dp/178257168X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1551559869&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=coast+to+coast+map&dpPl=1&dpID=51oT4Pp3foL&ref=plSrch)
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Harvey Maps for me. The coverage is only popular areas but what with weight, waterproofness & being tear proof what could be better?.
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Any 1:25000 OS map - the cartography is superb, and sometimes I can just sit and 'read' a map almost as if it were a book.
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Any 1:25000 OS map - the cartography is superb, and sometimes I can just sit and 'read' a map almost as if it were a book.
They really are things of beauty, aren't they? I do the same thing quite often.
I have however recently discovered the little Yellow map series. 1:16000 scale OS data on neat folded and laminated sheets. I
You just reminded me that I have one of those for the Upper Derwent Valley - it really is a cracking, little map and a great idea. We bought it at Fairholmes when we went over there walking and forgot to pack our regular map.
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Any 1:25000 OS map - the cartography is superb, and sometimes I can just sit and 'read' a map almost as if it were a book.
Yes. This is why I can’t get on with Harvey’s maps. They might be great functional maps but they’re ugly.
Other ugly maps - the French IGN ones :(
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Yes. This is why I can’t get on with Harvey’s maps. They might be great functional maps but they’re ugly.
I've never owned one but I have looked at them and I too find them hard work. I can't put my finger exactly on why that's so but suspect maybe it's their use of colour.
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I hardly ever use 1:25,000 I just find them far too cluttered with too much detail. I can't see the wood for the tree symbols on them. I find the 1:50,000 much clearer and easier to use. I also really like the Harvey maps, I like the colours. I also think that printing them on plastic sheets is light years ahead of the OS paper or laminated maps.
I agree Frence maps aren't great, Swiss and Austrian maps are much better then ours, Italian and Spanish ones are "Oh dear".
Swedish maps are 1:100,000 so one map covers as much ground as four OS 1:50,000. Norwegian maps are 1:50,000 but only half the size of the OS ones, so you need loads and their expensive.
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I have used Harvey's maps, for the C2C and the Pennine Way. I like them except for one problem, I'm colour blind (red/green) and in bright daylight I can see the route OK. But if I'm hiking in really dull weather, or if I'm in a pub or restaurant in the evening and want to check my route under artificial light, I can't, the maps just becomes blurred. If the venue uses coloured lighting, I cannot see them at all.
I've only tried to carry an OS map once, never repeated it!
I do like the A to Z booklets though, they are really good. Some colours (Kielder Forest for example) cause me a little difficulty if trying to read them under artificial light but not too much.
So for me I now only use an app on my phone. Backcountry for the UK and SityTrail for France.
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I have used Harvey's maps, for the C2C and the Pennine Way. I like them except for one problem, I'm colour blind (red/green) and in bright daylight I can see the route OK. But if I'm hiking in really dull weather, or if I'm in a pub or restaurant in the evening and want to check my route under artificial light, I can't, the maps just becomes blurred. If the venue uses coloured lighting, I cannot see them at all.
I've only tried to carry an OS map once, never repeated it!
I do like the A to Z booklets though, they are really good. Some colours (Kielder Forest for example) cause me a little difficulty if trying to read them under artificial light but not too much.
So for me I now only use an app on my phone. Backcountry for the UK and SityTrail for France.
Do you mind if I ask how you cope with the colours on your smartphone using the various mapping apps you use? Is there a difference in the lighting or is there a setting you can use to take away the problem of being colourblind when looking at red/greens? If you can't see the colours on paper, how can you see them on a smartphone?
I work with some people who are very dyslexic, and use various colour sheet filters on bits of paper and maps etc, but as you can imagine, the change in colour can cause significant issues (think bodies of water/marshland now looking pinky red!) So, do you view things differently through some clever setting, or is it just as difficult, but easier because it is backlit or brighter or something.
Thanks
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Smartphones have solved my problem completely, my apps are very easy to read, in daylight, under artificial light and in darkness. A liitle difficult when its a bright sunny day, I then turn my back to the sun and read it in my body shade or I just find a shady spot nearby.
I think its because my phone screen brightness can be adjusted to exactly what I want.
When my wife and I had to use paper maps to drive in an area we did not know, I could never be the map reader at night, once the interiour light was switched on I was 'blind!' Torches didn't help either. The large page AA type maps for me were always the worst!
When I was a full time Advocate I had a young client (a typist) who could only use a PC monitor if the screen background was blue and the words on the screen were white. Anything else and she just couldn't function. My role was to persuade her company to buy her the necessary programme. Her Manager was a real [censored] so I had to arm twist and threaten him with the companies formal Complaints Procedure. He quickly backed down, she I believe still works for the company, he left long ago.
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Colour blindness (which to varying degrees affects one in twelve men) is not easy to explain to those who don't have it.
Different light wavelengths and intensities all affect the way light strikes the rods and cones in your eyes, so as GWM explains he can see ok in one situation that becomes confusing on another.
In 1975 the HSE produced a paper showing that it was actually dangerous to have red and green as the difference between safety and danger in sign usage. That was swept under the bumpy carpet when Govt. realised the cost of changing traffic lights and all other forms of signage.
At times it can be very tricky for colour blind people and like deafness is rarely treat with sympathy by those who do not understand, as both are invisible to others.
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I hardly ever use 1:25,000 I just find them far too cluttered with too much detail. I can't see the wood for the tree symbols on them. I find the 1:50,000 much clearer and easier to use.
But OS 1:25k maps show walls even fences in upland areas that are important for navigation, these are not on 1:50k maps.
As a visitor to Greek islands for many years, I have found the various maps available pretty awful, but in recent years Terrain maps http://terrainmaps.gr/index.php?l=en#aboutus (http://terrainmaps.gr/index.php?l=en#aboutus)have appeared. While they are not that highly detailed, they are reasonably accurate and worth seeking out.
Some interesting discussion of colour-blindness here; I recall the boy in my primary school class who painted grass and trees brown, and earth red.
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I recall the boy in my primary school class who painted grass and trees brown, and earth red.
But he was probably painting what he saw.Just like every one else :)
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But OS 1:25k maps show walls even fences in upland areas that are important for navigation, these are not on 1:50k maps.
Don't get many of them up here. Contours are more useful. These are much harder to see on 1:25,000 maps.
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But OS 1:25k maps show walls even fences in upland areas that are important for navigation, these are not on 1:50k maps.
Yes, I think these are vital features for a walking map.
They are even more important for navigation in lowland farming areas - being the wrong side of a hedge might mean you're only 2 metres off course but it may well end in a fight through brambles and barbed wire when you find the gate or stile is in the adjacent field.
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A number of years ago I bought a bundle of old pre-metric OS maps at an auction. They are lovely things because the colour is so rich and dramatic compared with Landrangers etc. They are out of date of course but above a certain altitude things change at geological pace so it's less important. Generally I like the 1:50,000 series but have no problem with the greater detail on the 1:25,000.
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Yes, I think these are vital features for a walking map.
They are even more important for navigation in lowland farming areas - being the wrong side of a hedge might mean you're only 2 metres off course but it may well end in a fight through brambles and barbed wire when you find the gate or stile is in the adjacent field.
When you zoom in from 1;50k to 1.25k on the Ordnance survey mapping app, the footpath route can change by a surprising amount in position. I do wonder which is supposed to be the correct position of the path in reality & I have never gotten round to checking when out and about. I just tend to trust the 1.25k scale more, even though it isn`t always correct out on the ground.
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When you zoom in from 1;50k to 1.25k on the Ordnance survey mapping app, the footpath route can change by a surprising amount in position. I do wonder which is supposed to be the correct position of the path in reality & I have never gotten round to checking when out and about. I just tend to trust the 1.25k scale more, even though it isn`t always correct out on the ground.
I know what you mean. There is a late-neolithic homestead on the hill behind where I live that is accurately mapped on the 1:50,000 but is missing from the 1:25,000. I don't understand that at all.
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A number of years ago I bought a bundle of old pre-metric OS maps at an auction. They are lovely things because the colour is so rich and dramatic compared with Landrangers etc. They are out of date of course but above a certain altitude things change at geological pace so it's less important. Generally I like the 1:50,000 series but have no problem with the greater detail on the 1:25,000.
I've got some of those. The topographical detail on mountains is nowhere near as good as on the modern 1:25000 though, especially craggy areas.
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Italian and Spanish ones are "Oh dear".
The map of the Gran Paradiso area in Italy that I went to many decades ago was very good - but it wasn't Italian!
And as for Spanish maps - when in the Benasque area of the Pyrenees in the 1980's, we discovered that a path marked around the southern shore of a lake was in fact a near vertical cliff!
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Any 1:25000 OS map - the cartography is superb, and sometimes I can just sit and 'read' a map almost as if it were a book.
I know exactly what you mean. I can spend hours studying an OS map. I can honestly say I enjoy reading a map than any book.
One bonus of that is I have learned to memorize routes, in areas I have never visited before.
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Without doubt, the 1:25000 OS maps for me. I love the detail and the marking of field boundaries is useful for navigation. I also appreciate the marking of the Access Areas. There are some super walks 'off piste'.
Have recently started using the laminated maps. I am in two minds about these. They are robust certainly but heavy and you cannot fold them so as to have the relevant bit showing in a map case. I tend to print off a section of map, and put this in my map case, rolled up in elastic cord which I have added to the top of my rucksack. The maps are mostly back up, useful/interesting information and the sheer pleasure of looking at them, as I mostly use GPS for navigation.
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This looking at maps just for pleasure..Is it just a man thing or are there any women on this site who enjoy gazing at detailed maps...would love to hear. :)
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This looking at maps just for pleasure..Is it just a man thing or are there any women on this site who enjoy gazing at detailed maps...would love to hear. :)
I love looking at OS 1:25000 maps. You can learn so much about the landscape from them and find interesting features to include in a walk. I enjoy seeing how I can link up paths into a good route. Although I rarely use paper maps for navigation, now that I use gps, I often get them out when I have a pit stop as I like to see the walk in the wider context.
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This looking at maps just for pleasure..Is it just a man thing or are there any women on this site who enjoy gazing at detailed maps...would love to hear. :)
Sounds like a prelude to an ad on a dating site:
Map gazer, loves walking and the outdoors, seeks similar :smitten:
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I love looking at OS 1:25000 maps. You can learn so much about the landscape from them and find interesting features to include in a walk. I enjoy seeing how I can link up paths into a good route. Although I rarely use paper maps for navigation, now that I use gps, I often get them out when I have a pit stop as I like to see the walk in the wider context.
I am much the same. I love my etrex gps, but in an odd way it makes me feel closed in, using it on its own, until I look at the map and appreciate what is all around me.
Sounds like a prelude to an ad on a dating site:
Map gazer, loves walking and the outdoors, seeks similar :smitten:
;D ;D Ok well if there are any like minded females...but I do not like being a passenger in a car & even less following on a hike. My mate lead a few times when we were hiking but his indecision used to drive me mad...I would rather take a wrong turn quickly, than ponder ten minutes at a footpath junction as to which is right or wrong...I just want to walk, even if its in the wrong direction, not stand around... ;)
& PS Fernman...shouldn`t that be map Geezer.?
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This looking at maps just for pleasure..Is it just a man thing or are there any women on this site who enjoy gazing at detailed maps...would love to hear. :)
;D
I love paper maps too, I could spend hours looking at then. Defo not just a man thing :)
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I enjoy looking at maps that aren't even of real places so I must be a proper map geek :)
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Interesting thread, and nice to see that some people still actually navigate rather than simply get told by a computer chip where to go (pun intended).
I personally think that Explorer (1:25000) maps are necessary for navigation in open areas (my local one is Dartmoor for example). A while back I walked the Cambrian Way, and found the Landranger (1:50000) fine for the earlier, more built up areas perfectly functional, but once on the Brecon Beacons the Explorer was king. It's also worth mentioning that since OS is a public service, they are very good at listening to their customers (i.e us). It is therefore worth informing them of any issues. On the Cambrian Way walk there was one point (near the source of the Severn) where there was a gap of about a mile between two of the Explorer maps that didn't appear on either of them. I bought the 'missing' map because you never know what might be there, and sure enough, there wasn't anything to worry about. I wrote to OS who replied, promising to look at it for future publications despite pointing out that the Cambrian Way isn't an official National Trail.
With regard to foreign mapping, aren't we lucky to have the OS? OK French maps may be messy but they are usually accurate. Spanish? I still have two overlapping maps bought at the same time that have a named place in two different locations. Greek? How does anyone get anywhere? I also have a map of the Mount Elgon National Park (border of Uganda and Kenya) that shows nothing (including grid lines) but contour lines. That really does challenge the navigator, even with a GPS since there's no map datum info either.
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Great to read the response in thread. There are clearly still many of us who love our paper maps. Wether as back up to GPS or works of art, I can see me continuing to collect them just as long as OS keep printing them. O0
For interest has any one else also treated themselves to a Times World Atlas. I bought one with the small inheritance my farther left me when he past, 22 years ago. Another peice of informative art, that I will treasure forever.
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But OS 1:25k maps show walls even fences in upland areas that are important for navigation, these are not on 1:50k maps.
As a visitor to Greek islands for many years, I have found the various maps available pretty awful, but in recent years Terrain maps http://terrainmaps.gr/index.php?l=en#aboutus (http://terrainmaps.gr/index.php?l=en#aboutus)have appeared. While they are not that highly detailed, they are reasonably accurate and worth seeking out.
Some interesting discussion of colour-blindness here; I recall the boy in my primary school class who painted grass and trees brown, and earth red.
The point about walls and fences is an important one in areas where the rights of way are barely visible on the ground or are difficult to distinguish from sheep tracks. Finding you have climbed or dropped several hundred feet in the wrong field and having to retrace your steps is not great, especially towards the end of a walk that's at the limit of your stamina.
It was under such circumstances I ripped my hand open trying to climb over a very greasy fence to avoid doing the climb again.
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I use lots of maps! I mainly do long linear walks in areas I've not walked before.
For route following my first choice is an A-Z Adventure series where they exist. OS 25k mapping in a convenient form for long linear walks.
Harvey maps if AZ does not cover it - but they are useless if the route involves anything larger than a small village.
If neither of the above then I'll create my own strip map of double sided A4 panels of OS 50k maps.
For urban areas my preference is for extracts from Philips County Street Maps at 20k scale. Apart from the named streets, these maps show all public footpaths and bridleways and name buildings not shown on even the OS 25k maps. The excellent Trailblazer guides are based on this mapping.
For context and general planning, my choice is Philips Navigator Atlas at 100k scale. In addition to basic roads and tracks they show National Trails, major campsites, woodland and streams and hill heights and names. I plot my route on them and add other known campsites. The double side sheets are slightly under A3 in size so cover a large area. Excellent for noting escape routes or for going well off the planned route as I'm prone to! I find a sheet typically covers two days walking - they are my back up to the strip maps. I use sheets torn from an old copy.
Both sets of Philips maps are national grid aligned and show grid lines so can be used with GPS if you have to!