Quoted from REI web site

> Simple trail maps, the line-drawing variety often found in guidebooks, are
> useful
> for trip planning but NOT for navigation in the field. To safely find your
> way in
> wilderness terrain, you need the detail provided by topographic maps.

While true in one sense, it is manifestly misleading in another sense. It
takes experience to be able to use a topo map they way they are suggesting,
and that experience only comes from going walking without that experience
(but with the topo map in hand anyhow).

But more to the point: I wonder how our early explorers and stockmen managed
to get around the mountains without a good topo map?

And I do remember doing the Arthur Ranges in SW Tassie in the 60s off a
small(!) sketch map photocopied from a Hobart Walking Club magazine....

Ah well ... suitable for Americans novices.

Cheers