North Pole 101

I'm between road trips and have time on my hands to explore travel related issues that I find interesting, like maps and navigation, so here are some thoughts on the North Pole:

Hikers and anybody else using a compass has a general understanding the the true north pole is not the same as the magnetic north pole, but it is normally pretty close. It gets complicated because the magnetic pole is not in the same place as the geographic pole and also wanders over time and so maps need to be continually updated. Right now the magnetic pole has left northern Canada and, for reasons unknown, has recently speeded up dramatically; it is headed northwest at 40 miles per year. This affects any number of things, including the runways at airports which show the compass heading (ie. "27R") and need to be re-designated and repainted with updated information. Tampa made the news a few years back when they did this. Many also think this recent speed-up is confusing migratory animals that rely on geo-magnetic clues to navigate.
 

I like this map - nice graphic, and it shows the complexity of the difference between true and magnetic north, in compass degrees. If you live along the black line, say  in New Orleans or Minneapolis, this is a non-issue; no difference at all. The real north pole is in the same direction as the magnetic. Go east or west of that line and the difference increases - each line is a one degree change in declination. To compensate, all compasses have a way adjust the dial on the compass face to point in the right direction. New York and Los Angeles are each only about 13 degrees east or west. In northern Alaska, the difference is the most dramatic in the US - about 20-25 degrees!

Portable Power

On my kayak camping trip in Baja I brought along some gear that turned out handy. My cell phone had a music library that I played maybe once, but more importantly, the solar charger kept the phone charged. Later in the trip, when Jorge's phone battery went dead, he borrowed mine to hike to the top of Danzante Island, find a signal, and send a text message to confirm our takeout location with our van driver on the mainland. The solar panels also kept my camera battery charged through a USB output, and kept a pack of AA batteries topped off if I needed them for my flashlight. Good gear. I think it will go with me on my next camping trip.

A Different Perspective

I am quite fond of Buckminster Fuller, the visionary thinker and architect who lived and worked in the mid 20th century. He contributed many novel ways of looking at things and generally was an out-of-the-box sort of individual. He took a fresh look at everything from housing to automobiles and brought the concept of 'synergy' into the mainstream. He is widely known as the father of the geodesic dome, which segments a sphere into triangular elements for strength and ease of construction. 

He also applied this concept in producing an accurate map of the world by peeling back the surface of the globe like an orange, to lay flat and to show true sizes and relationships of the land masses. Definitely mind boggling, and one of my favorite ways of looking at the earth. All the continents are string together in a way that we're not used to seeing. Africa is pretty big; Asia not so much so. You can see how humanity walked from Africa to the tip of South America. The Arctic Ocean is almost an inland sea, and northern Alaska - where I will be in July, is actually closer to Finland or to parts of China than it is to my home in Southern California.

 

And, no, Greenland is not really larger than Africa. Remember that map that hung on the wall in your sixth grade classroom? You know, the one that taught you all you know about geography?

Planning Ahead

I do wish there was such a thing as science of trip planning, but as long as I have enough time, I am content to do things the way I always have. This means I stumble through options and scenarios until a logical plan shows itself. I am now in the middle of travel details for a few upcoming journeys. This year is turning out to be the.year.of.many.trips, and I am juggling quite a few options.

In mid July I have two guided hiking trips scheduled in Alaska; back-to-back in the Kenai Peninsula and the Arctic North Slope. This involves a lot of flight connections through Seattle, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Homer, and my favorite, Deadhorse. Many of the flights are via Alaska Airlines, and they have been making the process more challenging by changing flight times after I made my reservations, but I think all my plane and hotel reservations are done, at least until I hear from Alaska again.

At the end of October I am traveling to Indochina and this week I started looking at travel connections. It seems the further away the destination, the more options show up – but no matter what flight connections I look at, they all seem to get me into Bangkok around 11:00pm. Probably right when Bangkok is waking up, but not the best for me. We meet our guides in Luang Prabang, Laos, but I have decided to add to the complications by looking up an old school chum who now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai looks like a good option, and reservations seem pretty straightforward so I'll work on that. For a short while I thought about meeting up with our tour by taking the ‘slow boat’ down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, but a bit of research made me realize that the two days on the river would be hot, crowded, uncomfortable, and very likely dangerous. So I think that experience is going to be nixed and replaced with a one hour direct flight. Once I meet up with the guided tour we cover a lot of ground so I am especially glad that air connections to Hanoi, DaNang, Ho Chi Minh City and Siem Reap, Cambodia are handled by Country Walkers.