...it's like VHS versus betamax, isn't it? You can use only one or (if you're strange and have two formats of video machine/map-reading brain, both)

Oh dear, I'm quite happy using both, sometimes on the same walk :-)

You obviously have a dual-channelled brain, Chris
;o)

p.s. What sort of VCR did you have in the early Eighties?

Early eighties! I didn't have a TV in the early eighties!

I think we've had a VCR for 5 or 6 years, a complicated second-hand thing. I've never been able to make it record.

Dual-channelled brain eh? That must be why I can use digital and film cameras together as well as OS and Harveys maps.

All four at the same time? Sheesh!

p.s. how did I guess that you wouldn't have had a VCR then?? lol

I don't know. How did you guess? :-)

Call it women's intuition ;-) (note how it's always called intuition when they get it right, but called a guess when they get it wrong);-)

i thought it was called "changed my mind" when it was wrong......

<ducks>

Give over, you two, everything is always my fault.

:o)

Also often use both maps on the same walk. Very rarely actually measure off the map - usually just estimate distance on basis of 1 square = 1km whatever map you use. Obviously for micro nav it's different but Harveys do come in 1:25k so not really a problem.

I think you've hit on the key to using to different maps and scales there, Steve. I don't mind how big the grid squares are. My mind automatically reads them as 1km squares and adjusts everything accordingly. So I can switch from a 1:25,000 Harveys map to a 1:50,000 OS map on the same walk quite easily.

It's the dual-channelled brain that does it Chris! ;-)

I have met several slightly lost people this year in thick clag in Scotland looking for a path marked on their Harvey maps, yet there is no real path that I know of where they are looking.

It is for that reason that I am not their biggest fan as they can encourage people to head blindly for a path that is no there or not all that good in the first place.

I realise that many are there and the mistakes on the OS are numerous.

Like others have said the contours are funny and they don't always show the topography as well as 10m contours due to a slight masking in the slope steepness.

That said I do use all varieties of maps from time to time in GB and they are all as bad as each other to be honest, but you can't beat a 1:50 in my opinion..............


just my thoughts anyway

In terms of paths I've found Harveys and the OS as bad as each other in that maps from both companies show paths that aren't there or are hard to locate and don't show paths that are quite clear on the ground.

Hmm that's not their fault, though, is it? They have to show ROWs but often the 'universally trodden' path isn't quite in the same place or else a ROW is hardly used and isn't visible.

A good way of seeing the difference between map marked paths and real paths is to overlay the aerial photographs on top of the OS/Harvey based maps in Anquet or Memory Map.

I was thinking of hill paths in the Highlands rather than ROWs. There are more paths than shown on the maps but some of those shown are no longer there.

Mind you, I enjoy discovering and then trying to follow old paths. Sometimes you can seem them clearly from across the hillside but it's hard to actually find and follow them.

At least Harvey's do have different symbols for a path that exists on the ground and a path that doesn't.

It may not be foolproof but it's a start.

I vote for more paths that don't exist on the ground, it would solve a lot of erosion problems.

LOL Marcus! ;-)