If you had a GPS you could have "Waypointed" the spot and found it easily the next time you went out.



I don't agree that a GPS is unreliable. I might agree that I would not want to "Have to" rely on one, but I have many times. Mostly when boating. I have navigated the old "White River" channel on Bull Shoals Lake many times in pitch black darkness and very dense fog using my Garmin eMap GPS and it's been as solid as a rock for me.

I've had it turned on for at least 1000 hours and probably closer to 2-3 times that.

One night I got a big lag bolt in the tire of my car when I was driving up Hwy 55 in Illinois. No repair stations open anywhere, and nothing but small towns for miles. I checked the GPS and it told me there were two gas stations between me and a Wal-Mart about 20 miles away. The GPS led me to their front doors. I stopped twice for air, and then I got a can of "Fix-a-Flat" and a tire repair kit for under $10.00, fixed the tire and made my destination without a problem. I would have never found the gas stations or the Wal-Mart without the GPS and my wife and I would've been stuck all night on the side of the road next to corn fields with a totally flat tire in the morning. So, while I didn't really rely on it then, it did make the trip much easier and saved me a lot of time and hassle.

I have never had to rely on my GPS while hiking though. But I have used it a lot to find places I've waypointed on maps and it works incredibly cool for that.

There is a local guidebook by Tim Ernst called " The Arkansas Waterfalls Guidebook". Tim provides lat/longs for all the falls in his book and descriptions on how to find them. But some would be really tough to find without a GPS to guide you there.

Once you're deep inside the "hills and hollers" of the Ozarks you may have a general idea of your location, but knowing exactly which hollow you're in or looking into isn't likely until you've spent a lot of time in that area.

I've stumbled upon some cool spots here while bushwhacking, many of them unknown by ol'timers that have always lived here, and more than a few I'd have had a pretty tough time finding again without a GPS waypoint.

So, while it's certainly a personal preference, I do think the function to weight ratio makes it worth carrying when hiking.

BTW, the main reason I still use that old Garmin eMap is because the screen is much easier to see than the "eTrex" models. Well, that, and because it still works