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My stash of hand-drawn route cards from before everything went digital
I was cleaning out my backpack and found a bunch of my hand-drawn route cards from trips in the Sierra Nevada years ago. Each one was on a folded piece of grid paper, with distances between campsites and little symbols for creek crossings. I used to make these the week before a trip, copying from guidebooks and my own guesses. Today, I download a GPX file to my watch and follow the dotted line without much thought. It's so much more precise, but I kinda miss the puzzle of it all. Those old cards have smudges from dirt and maybe a bit of trail mix, and they feel more personal. Isn't it funny how the work we put into planning used to be part of the fun? I still use apps, but I keep one of those cards in my pocket as a backup, just for old times' sake.
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ryanperez7mo ago
Remember those old guidebooks sometimes had wrong distances though. I found a card from a trip near Bishop where my written mileage was off by two whole miles because a trail got rerouted. The smudged notes were part of the charm, but man, getting lost added unplanned adventure.
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gonzalez.iris7mo ago
What about my friend who found a waterfall thanks to a wrong turn in his guidebook?
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