RE: [Paddlewise] Discovery vs. GPS vs. guidebooks rant

From: Chuck Holst <cholst_at_bitstream.net>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:10:34 -0600
Gordon, you hit the proverbial nail on the head. Last year my wife and I 
made a long-postponed trip on Lake Superior from Silver Islet to Rossport, 
Ontario. A kayaking guidebook I checked had very little useful information 
aside from the put-in and takeout. Bonnie Dahl's book The Superior Way, a 
sailing guidebook, had more of the detailed information I wanted, but still 
not enough. I got some good information about campsites from two people who 
had made the trip before. Some of the information was right on; some was 
marginal or inaccurate; some was probably affected by the passage of time 
(one was at the site of an old burn we could no longer see). We found some 
good sites that neither had mentioned, and failed to verify some of the 
information we had because we passed on the other side of an island. I'm 
preparing my notes and maps for yet another group, but I don't know, in 
some cases, how useful it will be, because we preferred level beaches for 
our tent, whereas most of the other group will be using hammocks. And 
though we had generally good weather, we made less time than we expected 
because, when the weather looked threatening, we made for a known campsite 
rather than risk trying to find one that might not be there. One could make 
an aphorism of it: "When in doubt, take out."

Chuck Holst
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Received on Sun Jan 30 2005 - 19:11:55 PST

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