For 50 years I wandered in remote Adirondack wilderness areas, mostly far from any trail with only a map, compass, a standard wrist watch, and a bit of experience. My wife has a written itinerary and local DEC forest rangers who I knew, knew generallly where I was going, although I often made small changes while enroute. Funny how I survived all of that for so many years. Not that it could not happen, but I never got "lost" or hurt. Then at first, I when on a SAR incident, I only added a GPS with a radio on DEC frequency as a necessary part of the job. But since the DEC has recently transitioned to primary navigation using Caltopo on cell phones, I must also now reluctantly carry that device now when on SAR. But a map and compass is always also with me.
