>>994556>How about leaving marks?Not something I'd do or recommend in normal circumstances. I carry orange flagging tape and a few sharpies in my pack/fieldbook, so if there was an incident where I needed to hike out I could leave 'marks' that way. Date/time on sharpie on the flagging tape.
>How much battery does a GPS use? Because if you let it always track it may run out rather quickly. Waypoints every 30 minutes or something would be good.All fucking day, even in the cold on my sled.
Backlight's the biggest battery-eater. If you just let it do its thing, it'll run for quite some time. Mine runs on 2xAA's, same as my camera/flashlight, and I carry spares.
Tracks are the "digital breadcrumbs", a 30min waypoint probably won't be real helpful. Turn it on and leave it on, stash it in a pack, let it do its thing.
Need to get it wired to aux-power on my sled, so when that's running it's running off the sled instead of its battery.
>Whenever I go /out/ I'll make sure to have a GPS (With some spare batteries or way to charge them) and a map/compass."Two is one, one is none".
>GPS is probably easy to get the hang of, but I have no idea on a map. Also would probably need a map of any area that I visit or whatever.Basic navigation isn't that hard. Biggest thing is techniques/tricks to figuring out where you are. Boy scout handbook is a good starting point.
And yes, maps of where you're going. I have a tote full of maps, finding the appropriate one is part of my pre-trip/packing list. CalTopo will let you generate maps and print them if you don't have a map of the area (bonus, they print with a QR code to retrieve or share).
GPS isn't trivial, there are tricks to using it effectively. Definitely more convenient than map/compass all the time.
