Keith,

I have used GPS units rather extensively on boats for many years with no problems whatsoever, and the same while hunting in our Norwegian forests and mountians. I have also used GPS for navigation while driving from Norway to South Africa for a year. Much of it offroad in trackless desert and bush. In all of the cases above, having a decent map has been needed to navigate safely IMO. Despite having GPS topographical maping on the GPS units. Although I have yet to encounter a GPS unit dying on me, I always have a compass and paper map just in case.

As for your example of "GPS told you it was only half a mile to camp but didn't inform you of the cliffs inbetween.", I have been spared this experiance in general since I realize the limits of following a GPS or compass blindly. Both are useless if you don't look at the map. However, I have been dragged into a couple of situations that were simular to what you mention.

While in Sudan a few years ago, I was asked by a local we got to know if we would help him find an old abandoned fort deep in the desert. It was built back in the time of Kitchner and the Mahdi. As we found this to be an interesting adventure, we agreed to help him and made a plan from some maps he had, where the location of the fort was marked by a dot. He was a typical example of someone who had all the gear, but didn't know how to use it properly. Or so we were to soon find out! At the time, we naively thought that he had a bit of desert experiance, being a local...

I did however quickly understand that he was not used to using his dashboard mounted GPS, and I was the one who had to plot in the co-ordinates for him. This should have woken me up. But, being a guest in the country, especially in a country where honor and keeping face is extremely important, I had no choice but to let him lead the way, with the help of the GPS co-ordinates. Mind you, the map did not show any topographical info (a lot of desert maps in north Africa rarely do), so we would have to use our heads, in addition to following the GPS arrow. Alas, our local friend had a hard time understanding this. This resulted in him litterally trying to drive OVER mountains and some extremely rough terrain, instead of going around and coming back to course on the other side. Which would have been no problem with the GPS. As our Land Rover was loaded with around 1000kg more than his Land Rover (due to ours having all our equipment that we need to cross the African continent), I was not very happy with his choice of routes. Some of the razor sharp fields of lava we drove over were so bad that I was waiting for all 4 tires to puncture at once! And as he drove like a maniac, it was virtually impossible for us to catch up with him, and tell him to follow me instead. We even honked our horn for ages to get his attention. This went so far that we discussed letting him drive on like he was, and leaving him to go our own way. However, since I understood by that time that he was not familier with the desert, and his wife was in his car with him, we felt we couldn't abandon them. In case something happened, in which case they would need our help. Finally he stopped up, as he literally got stuck in an area with sand and dunes. I spent some time explaining that it was much better to go around mountains rather than over them, and from then on took over being in the lead.

One other example was while we were in Mauritania, near the coast. We joined up with a German couple in their mid 60s for some days, and we quickly understood that he looked upon himself as being very experianced with desert driving. And he let everyone he met know it... As I had no reason to bother playing power games with him, I decided to let him lead our little convoy. It was clear that this was important to him, as he was the kind of guy who typically liked to be in charge. But, I knew already that despite his desire to lead, he was not necessarily capable of leading us safely. So I decided to make sure I'd do my own navigating, just in case. We both plotted in a route of waypoints that he had gotten from a friend, and eventually set off. But I continuously kept an eye on the maps to make sure we were where we should be etc. And after a couple of days, we came to a flat partion which I saw on the map ended up at the north side of a large bay along the Atlantic ocean. The next waypoint however was at the other side of the water, all the way out at the mouth of the bay. This wasn't possible to see since it was so flat, but the map told me so. And heading towards the waypoint would mean several hours of extra driving! After a bit of honking and light flashing, we were able to stop the Germans and get them and us turned in the right direction. Basically, the route we had was missing 1 rather vital waypoint, which should have been at the innermost part of the bay. There was no danger involved, but it would have certainly wasted several hours of driving if I hadn't kept an eye on the map at the same time. Needless to say, the German fellow was a bit embaressed, and toned his attitude down a notch or two. And I think he wife enjoyed seeing him be put in his place, as she gave us a big wink when he wasn't looking.

One thing these experiances have resulted in is that I basically don't trust anyone else but myself to get me to where I want to go.

Erik