This Reddit discussion and this YouTube video inspired me to brush up on my old school map and compass skills. While figuring out where I could find the time to do this I had an epiphany: I didn't need to be exploring the backcountry to practice reading terrain or shooting azimuths; I could do all this in my own neighborhood. An no, I didn't need to buy a fancy compass either, the one built into my phone would be more than adequate. All I really needed was a high quality paper map of my local area.
A bit of Google'ing provide an easy answer to where I might find such a map. The USGS has been publishing local maps of the US since 1947. Using the USGS topo viewer, I plugged in my address and downloaded the 2022(!) Alexandria, VA 1:24000 quadrangle. I couldn't help but celebrate how smoothly my plan was coming together: I'd be practicing my orienteering skills in no time.
The map files are distributed as GeoPDFs, which means they can be opened and printed from any PDF reader, so that's what I did. As I grabbed the map from the printer I realized just how flawed my plan had been: the map was there, but it was scaled down to an unreadable level. As a local navigation tool, it was useless.
A quick Google Search suggested I wasn't the only one who had this problem, and offered these National Geographic maps as a solution. This was promising, as these were USGS maps and were designed for printing on letter sized paper. But there was a significant catch: many of these maps are now quite dated. For example: the Alexandria, VA quadrangle is from 1983. Considering the USGS has an update map from last year, it seemed silly to rely on National Geographic's ancient version.
I looked around for other solutions, but ultimate did the unthinkable: I read the manual. Or rather, I watched the Using the National Map Products and Services playlist on YouTube. These videos take you through viewing, downloading and yes, printing USGS maps. I watched them at 1.5x speed, and they were more than worth my time. In fact, I'd argue that if you spend any time in the outdoors or ever glance a map, it's worth taking the time to watch these videos.
In the next few posts I'll walk through each of the lessons I learned that let me ultimately produce local hard copy maps that exceeded my expectations. Up next: finding local maps.
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