Week #1: Navigation dilemmas

Well it’s around a week since the possibility of doing the walk this summer occurred to me. What have I achieved so far?

Apart from last weekend’s SAREX, there’s been little physical preparation undertaken this week. I already ride or walk everywhere, so  I can’t say that I’ve been doing much beyond what I did anyway. I did spend yesterday's lunch break running up and down a flight of stairs, drawing many a strange look from passing pedestrians and those in neighbouring offices. No doubt those looks will get stranger if I resort to climbing façades or the Salamanca trees instead, but I actually quite like getting strange looks. After all, the only way to avoid them would be to act normal... Yeah, like that's going to happen!

But there’s more to this trip than just the physical side. In reality, it’s not much more physically demanding than any other multiple day hike. The tracks are difficult and I’ll be carrying more gear, but the real challenge for now lies with the other preparation. Food is usually my main organisation concern, but that’s a concern for another couple of months away. Right now I’m more worried about other gear. Some of mine won’t be up to the task.

So what needs to be different? Well firstly, reliability is a major concern. If boots start to fail on day two of a four day walk, they’ll at least survive until the end. If they fail on day two of a four week walk, that’s a serious problem. Stoves, too, tend to suffer from reliability issues. A quick bit of campsite maintenance fixes most of them but I have to plan for all of them.

This week, I’ve been thinking about what I need for navigation. On paper, the walk stretches across 17 different 1:25,000 series Tasmaps. Now a few areas can be comfortably done with less detailed maps, bringing that number down somewhat. Not all of them though. The last section of the walk will be taking one of two routes with no defined trails. Navigation then will be critical. While I’ve resisted the general trend toward them the last few years, I think it’s time to look seriously at digital navigation aids.

The handheld GPS has come a long way since its origins, and still quite a way since the hiking model I played around with a few years back, which gave me an average walking speed of 70kmph. Not bad at all, though I don’t remember making all those 20 second long 40km detours that it showed on the track log. A basic GPS with just a lat/long readout is pretty cheap, but doesn’t work well under tree cover or in poor weather. If I’m not in the trees and I’ve got good visibility, I can just use a compass and the nearest mountain. Next problem: the maps of the area use two different coordinate systems, varying by around 200m. Your basic GPS can’t give you the readout in different coordinates, so best mark the new grids on the maps.

Or, do I just get a GPS with a powerful receiver and a full set of 1:25k Tasmanian maps preloaded? Compared with the cost of 17 laminated maps, that’s actually pretty appealing…  I’d still want a printed map as well for some of the more critical areas, in case of electronics failure. Say the cost of 14 laminated maps then. That's still most of the price of a decent map-capable GPS these days. Considering a Garmin eTrex 20 at the moment, mostly because of battery life and included 1:25k vector maps of Tas.

Really though, without going on about, "when I was your age, a portable GPS weighed 5kg and cost a year's wage," I still have to say that I find it impressive how far the technology has come and the prices they've fallen to. A GPS that fits in the palm of my hand, is accurate to within ten metres or so and has enough battery life to log your route for an entire day can be found for the price of an average restaurant steak...

Of course, using a GPS brings up another problem, or more of the same problem I was already facing. I need a power-supply on track. Cameras, torches, GPSs and mobile phones (large expanses of the Tasmanian wilderness now have phone reception from the peaks, and the advice to walkers is that a phone is as important as an EPIRB in an emergency) all use power. Short trips are easy; a few batteries and you’re sorted. For this trip though, I can’t afford the weight of that many batteries. Easily sorted, because I’m guaranteed at least the occasional patch of sunlight. Some walker-friendly companies have taken to making light-weight flexible solar panels designed to attach to the top of your pack. They charge AAs plus anything running on USB. Everything is charged by USB now, so that has me covered.

I've got some new Scarpas and they're breaking in comfortably without a single blister to show for it, which must be a record for me! Still looking at stoves but I've a few ideas there...

For now at least, I think I’ve worked out solutions to most of the immediate gear issues.

So what else needs doing? I still have to find myself a crew of keen walkers. I’ve repeatedly had people pointing out that once I set dates for each section of walk, I’ll end up with others tagging on for a few days at a time. But there needs to be a small core team that’ll do the whole walk. The process (it sounds so much more organised and careful when I call it that!) has been started and we’ll see how it goes. Again, that’s covered for now.

That leaves me with my other task for the week, deciding on the route of the walk itself. Many thanks to John Chapman here, with his guide books for Tasmanian walks. If you’re thinking of doing a walk anywhere in Tas and you haven’t read his notes, do so. He lists every campsite, how sheltered they are, the availability of water and how long it takes to get between them. He also mentions the off-track walks, and unmarked side trips. It’s thanks to him that I know about one of the off-track ways that I might use for the last leg of the loop. Unfortunately, the other way I'm considering doesn’t appear in his books, and I’ve only found accounts of the conditions at either end of it. A valley crossing the middle remains an unknown, and Google’s satellite photo doesn’t tell me much. Different maps show it as everything from open grassland to thick scrub.

Do I take the route that I know to be immensely difficult but definitely possible, or take the unknown path and risk spending a few backtracking? I do like the idea of a bit of unknown to finish the trip. There aren’t any supply drop points for a week preceding that track, so I can’t afford too much backtracking.

All in all, planning continues quite nicely and I’m looking forward to another weekend of physical preparation. I just have to decide what it'll... Oh look, it’s been snowing!

I think I know what the next round of physical preparation shall entail!