Posts tagged: goblog

Casting Your Eyes to the High Country: Google Maps Now With Contour Lines

April 4, 2008, by 1 comment

That motley crew over at GoBlog tore themselves away from Battlestar Galactica reruns long enough to post an item that should interest any bluelining/brownlining/stream-seeking fly fisherman:

Google Maps added a "Terrain" feature last fall, and it was decent — yeah, cool, I can look at terrain features, whatever. Well, Google just announced that it added contour lines to its maps, making them pretty comparable to USGS topos. It looks like trails and campgrounds are even marked in most national parks.

Cool. Now you’ll know exactly how much suffering you’ll undergo discovering if that thin blue line holds fish or not.

image 
The Upper Sac with contours (What–I’m going to reveal a secret?)

Then again, suffering is bad, the backcountry’s filled with dangerous, carnivorous predators, and the scattered fish are small anyway, so it’s probably best just to fish where everybody else does. I’m just saying is all.

Still, for masochists with a death wish (backcountry = danger), Google Maps is useful and yes — free. We like free.

See you suffering horribly, Tom Chandler.

New Study Says Bear Spray Outperforms Guns

March 29, 2008, by 14 comments

From the formerly bikini-fishing-chick posting deviants at the Getoutdoors Blog (GoBlog) comes a Salt Lake Tribune story that suggests leaving the big, heavy firearm at home might be your best bet when it comes to bear protection:

If you’re roaming bear country, your best protection against an unpleasant encounter is a can of bear spray, not a gun, according to Brigham Young University wildlife biologist Tom Smith.

Smith’s team, which included Stephen Herrero, a world authority on bear attacks, has studied 600 bear encounters in Alaska over two decades. In 72 incidents in which bear spray was used properly, the bear stopped charging more than 90 percent of the time, according to a study Smith published in the April edition of the Journal of Wildlife Management. People using guns, by contrast, stood a one-in-three chance of failing to deter the bear, according to an earlier study.

Bear attacks aren’t exactly a problem in the Mt Shasta area, and while I’ve seen bears a half-dozen times up here, they’ve always been headed in the opposite direction. And frankly, I’d hope the smell of human waste drives bears away, because I’d likely soil myself if a bear ever did charge.

Still, it’s food for thought for the upcoming Montana road trip, though it’s possible that just being fast enough to outrun your fishing buddy is defense enough.

See you in the pepper aisle, Tom Chandler.

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