Trek that Map, Dummies

Map and compass

It's always fun to find people sharing new-found hobbies with the rest of the world (though we think most of them should stick to people they know: oversharing is so... over...). Where we start not liking this sharing business is when in all their enthusiasm, they share misinformation. We especially dislike this oversharing habit when accurate versions of the information are super-easy to come by. Such is the case of one relative newbie at HubPages,com, a gentleperson of the British extraction (based on his spelling, anyhow) who claims to also be a newcomer to Dubai. He calls himself  Chris, who recently opened the hubbie account uaetrekking. Chris wants to share his newfound hobby, so he starts with a post he calls "Map and Compass Guide." Frankly, we think he shouldn't have bothered...

Chris claims (in his profile) that he "moved to Dubai and took up trekking only to discover that trekking isn't a recognised sport here": he should probably have used a search engine to find... tada! UAE Trekkers! But that's OK, maybe he likes to go it alone. Where he shouldn't be going it alone is in sharing "information," information like the three types of north, which are,according to Chris,

"Grid North: The North that is on the paper map is straight up towards the North Pole. Magnetic North: The North that your compass points to is in the direction of Canada. True North: In-between Grid and Magnetic" Ummm.., wrong. The right answers are: Grid North: any quasi-vertical line on a map of (equal X-eastings) Magnetic North: the direction a compass needle points, which is to the Earth's north magnetic pole. That's a wandering spot somewhere in north-central Canada True North: the direction to the north end of the Earth's axis of rotation, also a line of longitude.

God forbid someone out on the desert in the Empty Quarter would rely on Chris' definitions: his body might never be found! Chris likewise has problems with the definition of a topographic map. According to him,

"Map and scale is a birds eye view of the ground, drawn to scale capable of showing physical features, man made features and relief information. When it shows all of these it is known as a Topographical Map..."

...which, we suppose, once the grammar is untangled could be construed the definition of a topo map, though we think a little more emphasis on the means of depicting the "relief information" is in order -- in other words, use the word "contour," Chris!

Chris likewise goes into a lo-o-o-o-o-ng, drawn out process of describing correcting a bearing from magnetic north to true north (though he doesn't say why you might have to do this). He also talks about using the "grid magnetic angle" of an ordnance map, even though he implies in his profile that there are no maps of UAE. Duh.

We're not so certain we want to take orienteering directions from a guy who never mentions setting the declination of his compass and continues to call the direction arrow the "declination arrow." We figure that's a very good way to get lost.

In other words, Chris, thanks but no thanks: we'll get our trekking directions from someone who can string together a couple of coherent sentences and knows what declination is and how to apply it. As for you, uaetrekker, we're sorry: you're our Dumbass of the Day for sharing your misinformation, Don't do that again!

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