Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2010 från Overland Journal

Educational Tool I just wanted to send a note to thank you for your wonderful magazine. I am a high-school teacher in the Raleigh area, and I use Overland Journal in both my geography and yearbook classes. My students enjoy reading it in their free time, and when we are discussing an area of the world you have covered, the magazine really brings it to life for them. As the yearbook advisor I encourage my students to look through the issues for picture ideas and various ways to pose different shots. In both classes Overland Journal has been a blessing to me as a teacher. Catherine B. Raleigh, NC  Article Request I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your “On the Trail of Red Cloud” article. A…

By the time you read this, it will have been a year since we picked up our long-term Wrangler. Those of you who remember my introduction in the Summer 2009 issue will recall the strategy we decided to use with the JK: Rather than seeing how many accessories and modifications we could bolt, weld, screw or glue on it in 12 months, we decided to see how it would perform as an overland vehicle more or less straight out of the box. This might seem like an odd approach when a significant majority of our subscribers tell us in our surveys that they drive modified vehicles, and most have wish lists at least a dozen items long. But it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you need just…

Royal Geographical Society Overland Travel Workshop Early summer saw the second Royal Geographical Society Overland Travel Workshop, in the hills of northern England. The sleepy Yorkshire village of Terrington awoke to the rumble of diesels as overlanders from all corners of the U.K., the U.S., and Europe arrived to swap stories, spin yarns round campfires, and join in with the two-day lecture programme. The RGS, based in Kensington in London, has been supporting global exploration since 1830. Amongst their list of Fellows are names such as Shackleton, Scott, and Livingstone, and this is the second time they have sponsored this gathering of overlanders. The aim was quite simple—to bring together experienced overland travellers, those who would like to be overland travellers, and the suppliers of equipment and knowledge to support…

Summer destination idea for families Overlanding Tip: Break up camping nights with a stay at a child-friendly guest ranch In the wheat-colored grasslands at 6,500 feet, flecked with twisted Middle-Earth-like juniper trees, Rancho Magdalena waits behind a barbed wire fence on the south side of Highway 60 at milepost 109, just left of center when looking at a map of New Mexico. We rolled into the ranch just as the sun set; a dog named Cheeto ran alongside our BFGs licking his chops and no doubt preparing to baptize the sidewalls. Lee Scholes stood, cowboy hat and all, silhouetted next to a wooden gate to wave us in. What brought us here was a simple conversation and a new idea. “On our trip next month, what do you say we…

Not long ago I was in the middle of nowhere in Sonora, Mexico, with a couple of guys looking at a map. It was a Mexican topographic of a little-visited mountain range, a place way off the radar, and I thought for sure they must have had some kind of government hookup to have obtained it. To my surprise, they told me it had been thrown out by someone at a university in the U.S., and they had simply been lucky enough to spot it before the trash was picked up. We studied the tattered piece of paper, looking for the road we would use to make our way out of the mountains on our route north. But it just wasn’t there. “It was only cut in recently, so that’s…

Overland Navigator is the brainchild of Craig Miller, an avid overlander and founder of the Northwest Overland Society. Craig was determined to shed some of the bulk common in navigation software, such as commands and prompts most people rarely use. As a result, the product is truly plug-and-play, meaning you can install the program and maps very easily and be on your way. There isn’t much to study in the manual, as the controls are intuitive and easy to use. For example, when closing a typical mapping program the user is asked questions and prompted to name and save files, etc. With Overland Navigator this becomes unnecessary—all data is automatically saved to a file for each day of your trip. With each new day, your tracks and waypoints are saved…

DeLorme Topo USA is a perfect tool for planning a trip that will combine paved-road and city driving with backcountry detours and exploration. As the name implies, the focus of the product is on U.S. mapping; while there’s some information for Canada and Mexico, it’s limited. The software uses vector-based mapping data, but additional calibrated raster maps (USGS topos and aerials, and color satellite imagery) can be downloaded at additional cost ($30/year for unlimited downloads). The vector maps are based on USGS topo maps and show terrain elevation data, contours, land features, place names, and points of interest. It’s interesting to note, however, that the information doesn’t always match. The vector maps tend to omit many of the older map features, while adding some newer data such as updated forest…

Hema Navigator 5” $869 The Hema Navigator 5” (HN5) is the first comprehensive portable navigation system that incorporates both street and backcountry nav applications. In an effort to eliminate the need to use a laptop for advanced navigation software, Hema developed this five-inch touch-screen GPS device to run three different nav applications on Windows CE. Street nav is handled by Route 66, which utilizes the latest NAVTEQ street maps and points of interest. OziExplorer handles the 4WD nav, and allows you to load in Hema digital maps or any other georeferenced map you may have. Topo navigation can be done in the Memory Map application. With a micro SD card slot, the user should be able to load many gigabytes of maps, routes and waypoints. The unit also comes ready…

‘Wolves are too rare to stumble onto, and too wary to be fooled by common photographer tricks. Even glimpses of them are rare. They’re secretive and mysterious, and their story is often revealed only through the tracks in the snow’. Jim Brandenburg ~ Brother Wolf: A Forgotten Promise My conversation with Roseann Hanson at ConserVentures went something like this: “Ann, how would you like to go to Slovakia . . . ” “Yes!” “ . . . in February . . . ” “Sure!” “…to track wolves and lynx…” “YES!!” Roseann paused for a breath. I was too excited to breathe. The setting Two decades ago Slovakia emerged from behind the shattered Iron Curtain like a lost Grimm’s Fairy Tale, full of dark forests and darker castles. After a peaceful…

The only detailed topo maps available for Mexico come from INEGI, the cartography segment of the Mexican government, and are not freely downloadable like U.S. topo maps. I don’t own a set of the Mexican topos, but I do have Google Earth (free), and the detail it provides keeps getting better and better. Many mountainous areas in Sonora have been updated to high-resolution detail, and the best thing about Google Earth for Mexico is much of the aerial imagery is from recent INEGI data. No more worries about accuracy, because if there is a road or ranch on the ground, there’s a good chance I can see it on the map. But how could I use Google Earth on the trip, away from home and without an internet connection? How…

An obvious bargain for those traveling in the U.S., USA-PhotoMaps is available free of charge, although if you find it useful you should make a donation to the developer, Doug Cox. I can’t imagine the countless hours he’s spent working on this useful tool, continually developing and improving it over the years. At the heart of USAPhotoMaps is an internet connection and the MSR map database from Microsoft. The majority of the data consists of two of the most useful types for travel in the United States: USGS topo and aerial maps. The program retrieves this free map data from the MSR server (based on a grid of tiled images for the area you specify), stores it on your hard drive, and creates seamless, perfectly calibrated GPS maps from it.…

Still no joy for small-diesel fans I won’t bother listing the specifications for the latest crop of domestic diesel trucks, which are nothing like the proposed 4-liter engines we reported on over a year ago. Instead, the only offerings are even bigger than their predecessors, well over 6 liters and with ocean-liner torque curves. Yet the line-up is being touted as the greenest, most efficient ever. Imagine what could have been done with the 4-liter options. The stubborn big-platform focus still leaves the market wide open for Mahindra, but where are they? The little truck that could has been delayed more times than I care to count, and the U.S. distributor is reportedly suing over the delay. On the other end of the spectrum, Fiat has announced that they do…

We’d made a severe miscalculation. Well, to be fair, I had. It was a hot Saturday afternoon, and Brian Slobe and I had just completed half the photo shoot for this article, when, coming into the house in search of refreshment, we discovered an unlikely and distressing fact: We had four fridges, 96 beers—and only one cold one. I dutifully gave it to Brian’s wife, Debbie, while cursing myself for poor planning. Planning ahead is what refrigerators are all about. Whether it be cooling a beer for the evening camp, keeping meat fresh for the first two weeks of the Canning Stock Route, or keeping insulin at four degrees Celsius for nine months so it doesn’t go bad under the African sun, a refrigerator enhances comfort, extends range—and allows some…

As our convoy rumbled up to White House Ruins, deep inside Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona, my initial focus on the 1,000-year-old cliff dwelling was interrupted by a flurry of activity in front of our Jeep. Several Navajo—or Diné as they refer to themselves—started moving toward an old woman, who was clearly frightened and shuffling away from our group as quickly as she could. Stepping out of the Jeep, I could see the group reassuring her. Her countenance changed from frightened to hesitant, and the group came back over to us. I asked our guide, Cynthia Hunter, what the problem was, to which she replied, “That is my great aunt. She thought you were the U.S. Army coming to take her away.” History had many lessons for us as…

The same guys who introduced me to mobile VHF radio many years ago also showed me OziExplorer, before I even owned a laptop computer. I was impressed with the quality of the electronic maps they could access in their vehicles, which put to shame the little grayscale handheld GPS screen I had at the time. OziExplorer has been around for well over a decade, and was developed in Australia by Des Newman, who actively supports the product with regular updates. Owners are entitled to free upgrades whenever they become available. OziExplorer is sold without any maps; the user must provide them. This isn’t a bad thing once you understand the concept behind Ozi. The beauty of the program is that you can use any map, be it an image you…

Imagine being able to use Google Earth as a moving map, showing your current position and track along with way-points and data layers, all in full-color 3D with a tilt-able view, and in real time while underway. Yeah, that’s what I thought too—very cool. Google Earth is justifiably one of the most popular mapping programs around. However, until GooPs came along, everyone reluctantly closed the program once it was time to unplug the web connection and go on a trip. Now you can take it with you. GooPs is not a stand-alone program. When opened, it automatically starts and works within Google Earth to show your GPS data in real time as a moving map. The secret to using GooPs and Google Earth on a trip without an internet connection…

While there are many more mobile mapping software products available than those shown here, the selections I’ve presented represent products I’m familiar with or use personally. The most important thing is to get motivated and try computer-based mapping if you haven’t already, or if you have, to further explore the options available in the current market and keep an eye on new developments. The quality of mapping data is better than ever, and it has become so simple to take these tools along on a trip that it’s worth looking into even if you’re on a budget. Freedom of choice—it’s what overlanding is all about.…