Hikers recently rescued from an extremely challenging trail in B.C. had planned their trip using Google Maps, prompting a warning about the perils of relying on that platform in the backcountry.
Why would what I assume is a total novice think to themselves hmm I’m going to find a 5 hour hike for my first time out. So many bad decisions went into what happened.
You don’t need to be part of a real community to know this. Google Maps is good to check opening hours and how many reviews an establishment deleted, not for actually getting anywhere.
Willkommen in Deutschland. Yeah, Google added a „this restaurant has a lot of deleted reviews“ thing because German laws make it very easy for them to take down any criticism (unless customers can prove they were there with a receipt).
Yeah their maps are pretty shit, often missing paths. I use comaps which is offline open street maps, generally better but can still be lacking. Ordnance survey maps are the best and it isn’t even close.
OSM’s reliability is very locational. I seem to be the only one that updates my area, which works out well as I have access to where future roads will be, (and I need them on the map for my job) but man. Construction here is crazy and a little assistance would be nice! At least OSM actually accepts my edits and additions, though. Google denies every single one, thus continuing the legacy of shit mapping by them.
I love OSM because there was an island in the middle of the river in my town and depending on the water height this island gets smaller and bigger, whenever there is a large amount of rain and the river is extremely high the island vanishes. Usually the island disappears from OSM within about 10 minutes and then is re-added when the river drops down to its normal level. Truly Wikipedia levels of pedantic pettiness, and I’m here for it.
Most people so rarely need to navigate legislation that Ordinance Survey maps aren’t common. Ordnance Survey maps on the other hand are great for navigating the British countryside.
Where I live it still works fine. It might not be perfect and it does not work great for longer bike tours (If you actually want nice tours and not just the shortest), but if you’re going by car or train it’s good.
I don’t hike, but my experience with regular walking directions is that Google is regularly wrong…because it overestimates how long a trip will take.
Its directions for driving and public transport (at least where it has cooperation of the local public transport agency, as it does where I live) are excellent.
Cycling directions are the only one where I’d say a normal person’s experience is likely to be a bad one, with it regularly taking you on dangerous busy roads rather than nearby quieter streets or bike paths.
So I don’t find it particularly surprising at all that someone who isn’t a regular hiker would make the mistake of relying on it.
Walking speed is very subjective though. Realistically, hikers never agree on time it takes, and a lot of it comes down more to experience with your speed. In my case, I’m actually probably stronger than many people going uphill… But, downhill, my feet start to hurt and I get slow quickly.
I suspect that Google doesn’t account for anything. If I had to guess, I’d say it assumes a certain pace as the normal walking pace, and leaves it at that. Elevation, traffic lights, fatigue, and any other factors that might affect it be damned. So its time estimations for a hiking route are going to be a lot worse than its regular walking estimations. And all that’s before you account for, as you say, individual differences.
I hike a lot and use Organic Maps, which is a front end for OpenStreetMaps. Far more detail available on OSM, plus you actually get to choose what’s on display, rather than Google arbitrarily deciding that a road/track/landmark aren’t important enough to mention.
Fwiw most people I’ve seen recommend switching from Organic Maps to CoMaps. The latter is a fork of the former, made because OM was being run in a very untransparent way, including (but far from limited to) the discreet use of closed-source code.
Perfect example of Google maps issue, is that we did Grampians on the weekend here in Australia. And, it still had a road/track which had been completely deleted (probably long ago). And it wasn’t on any other maps… There was a rusted sign that had been long removed and sawed off sitting where the route clearly used to be, but no sign of route anymore
These days, most people tend to just use AllTrails or Avenza because they’re convenient. For Thru hiking (really long hikes), people tend to use products (apparently) like Captopo which better facilitate planning, tagging on long hikes and time calculations (I am hoping to do a thru hike soon).
In practice though, stolen untested routes used in Alltrails present their own problems though, as, the Alltrails team don’t actually check if the routes are safe or correct. I suspect they just steal them from other sources. But, for most people, its great as its convenient
OpenTopo/Openstreetmaps are commonly used as the source for a lot of mapping systems though, as it tends to be up to date and accurate in most places. (i use it on my garmin etrex 32x as a backup). I was also advised to use Strava Heatmaps on a hike I am planning to do to find water in certain locations, however, I use GPX Map viewer Pro, and use people I trust for routes if possible (or make my own).
Google Maps is great for roads, but, the data simply isn’t that accurate for anything else. And, there is no good way to report bad hiking routes. With OSM and other things, they can be fairly easily fixed
Instead of Google Maps, Lions Bay SAR provided a list of free and paid hiking apps it recommends, including AllTrails, Granite, and Gaia GPS—which can be used as part of the process of properly researching and preparing for a hike or a trip into the backcountry
How’s OpenStreetMap for that and walking around? I’ve degoogled a bit ago and have been using Co-Maps for cycling and driving navigation, but I never tried using it for nature preserves and trails (or walking around the streets where I live in the US).
Openstreetmaps with comaps is what I use when I go backpacking, at times having more up to date and accurate information than physical maps. It also does a pretty great job with its time estimations, sometimes it feels the elevation (gain and loss) is off though
This is a very rare occasion. In the real hiking community, nobody uses Google maps
I suspect that actually Google maps use in the hiking community is pretty high. Just not amongst experts.
Usually it’s only experts who try to tackle these difficult routes.
Why would what I assume is a total novice think to themselves hmm I’m going to find a 5 hour hike for my first time out. So many bad decisions went into what happened.
people who just got into hiking and don’t have a good mentor don’t know that
You don’t need to be part of a real community to know this. Google Maps is good to check opening hours and how many reviews an establishment deleted, not for actually getting anywhere.
This is something you can do?
Willkommen in Deutschland. Yeah, Google added a „this restaurant has a lot of deleted reviews“ thing because German laws make it very easy for them to take down any criticism (unless customers can prove they were there with a receipt).
Yeah, basically by claiming libel.
Yeah their maps are pretty shit, often missing paths. I use comaps which is offline open street maps, generally better but can still be lacking. Ordnance survey maps are the best and it isn’t even close.
OSM’s reliability is very locational. I seem to be the only one that updates my area, which works out well as I have access to where future roads will be, (and I need them on the map for my job) but man. Construction here is crazy and a little assistance would be nice! At least OSM actually accepts my edits and additions, though. Google denies every single one, thus continuing the legacy of shit mapping by them.
I love OSM because there was an island in the middle of the river in my town and depending on the water height this island gets smaller and bigger, whenever there is a large amount of rain and the river is extremely high the island vanishes. Usually the island disappears from OSM within about 10 minutes and then is re-added when the river drops down to its normal level. Truly Wikipedia levels of pedantic pettiness, and I’m here for it.
Should show high/low tides… Here we have a few islands at high tides and you can walk to them at low tide.
Nothing is ever perfect and the quality also depends how active the OSM community is. In general Komoot is the common person’s way to access OSM data.
Using ordnance survey maps is often like navigating a minefield. The ordinance survey maps are pretty helpful though.
Most people so rarely need to navigate legislation that Ordinance Survey maps aren’t common. Ordnance Survey maps on the other hand are great for navigating the British countryside.
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/
Where I live it still works fine. It might not be perfect and it does not work great for longer bike tours (If you actually want nice tours and not just the shortest), but if you’re going by car or train it’s good.
Goole’s far superior car navigation app is Waze.
What’s the big difference? I’m using Maps and it does its job. So what cool features does Waze have that Maps doesn’t?
I don’t hike, but my experience with regular walking directions is that Google is regularly wrong…because it overestimates how long a trip will take.
Its directions for driving and public transport (at least where it has cooperation of the local public transport agency, as it does where I live) are excellent.
Cycling directions are the only one where I’d say a normal person’s experience is likely to be a bad one, with it regularly taking you on dangerous busy roads rather than nearby quieter streets or bike paths.
So I don’t find it particularly surprising at all that someone who isn’t a regular hiker would make the mistake of relying on it.
It keeps sending people up my driveway to a place that doesn’t exist. Labels my neighbour’s driveway as a road too.
Walking speed is very subjective though. Realistically, hikers never agree on time it takes, and a lot of it comes down more to experience with your speed. In my case, I’m actually probably stronger than many people going uphill… But, downhill, my feet start to hurt and I get slow quickly.
I suspect that Google doesn’t account for anything. If I had to guess, I’d say it assumes a certain pace as the normal walking pace, and leaves it at that. Elevation, traffic lights, fatigue, and any other factors that might affect it be damned. So its time estimations for a hiking route are going to be a lot worse than its regular walking estimations. And all that’s before you account for, as you say, individual differences.
What would the real hiking community use?
A paper USGS topological map.
Nope. It’s Lions Bay, British Columbia, Canada
Most likely maps based on Natural Resources Canada data.
I hike a lot and use Organic Maps, which is a front end for OpenStreetMaps. Far more detail available on OSM, plus you actually get to choose what’s on display, rather than Google arbitrarily deciding that a road/track/landmark aren’t important enough to mention.
Fwiw most people I’ve seen recommend switching from Organic Maps to CoMaps. The latter is a fork of the former, made because OM was being run in a very untransparent way, including (but far from limited to) the discreet use of closed-source code.
It’s one Map. OpenStreetMap
Perfect example of Google maps issue, is that we did Grampians on the weekend here in Australia. And, it still had a road/track which had been completely deleted (probably long ago). And it wasn’t on any other maps… There was a rusted sign that had been long removed and sawed off sitting where the route clearly used to be, but no sign of route anymore
These days, most people tend to just use AllTrails or Avenza because they’re convenient. For Thru hiking (really long hikes), people tend to use products (apparently) like Captopo which better facilitate planning, tagging on long hikes and time calculations (I am hoping to do a thru hike soon).
In practice though, stolen untested routes used in Alltrails present their own problems though, as, the Alltrails team don’t actually check if the routes are safe or correct. I suspect they just steal them from other sources. But, for most people, its great as its convenient
OpenTopo/Openstreetmaps are commonly used as the source for a lot of mapping systems though, as it tends to be up to date and accurate in most places. (i use it on my garmin etrex 32x as a backup). I was also advised to use Strava Heatmaps on a hike I am planning to do to find water in certain locations, however, I use GPX Map viewer Pro, and use people I trust for routes if possible (or make my own).
Google Maps is great for roads, but, the data simply isn’t that accurate for anything else. And, there is no good way to report bad hiking routes. With OSM and other things, they can be fairly easily fixed
FTFA
Gaia GPS has turned to garbage when they were bought by Outdoors. Use their app at your peril.
How’s OpenStreetMap for that and walking around? I’ve degoogled a bit ago and have been using Co-Maps for cycling and driving navigation, but I never tried using it for nature preserves and trails (or walking around the streets where I live in the US).
Openstreetmaps with comaps is what I use when I go backpacking, at times having more up to date and accurate information than physical maps. It also does a pretty great job with its time estimations, sometimes it feels the elevation (gain and loss) is off though
It’s one map. So OpenStreetMap!