“Which Way Wednesday” will feature a navigation or trip planning related post every Wednesday.

This week, we’ll share a few questions from the Wilderness Navigation Challenge - a series of about 80 questions and answers/explanations that cover beginner to intermediate wilderness navigation skills.

It's designed as a teaching tool and for self-evaluation. Every question is followed with an answer and explanation, so you can learn as you go along.

Below are a few sample questions and answers from the challenge. If testing your knowledge and learning more about navigation flips your switch, you can check out the entire navigation challenge here.

Here at AlpineSavvy, we are huge fans of the terrific mapping software CalTopo. You can print three topographic maps of anywhere in the world, on a variety of base layers, add any scale you want to, and various paper sizes. It's easy to make your own GPX files, with tracks and weight points, and export them to use on your phone or handheld device. It's amazing software, it's free, or you can pay a modest annual subscription of $20 and get even more features, which I recommend. Have a look at this YouTube tutorial to get started and using this amazing tool.

Example - USGS standard topo map, Eagle Creek OR, no shaded relief. Unless you’re experienced in reading topographic maps, it’s difficult to see ridges, drainages, and where the high and low points are.

Example - USGS standard topo map, Eagle Creek OR, with about 25% shaded relief. Note that you can now easily see where the ridges and creek drainages are, no real knowledge of contour reading required. (Shaded relief is kind of magical!)

See more about shaded relief at this post.

Caltopo MapBuilder Topo layer, Eagle Creek OR, shaded relief. This is a custom map player in Caltopo that shows trails, drainages, vegetation, and nice shaded relief. And the best part, you can print maps like this for free at Caltopo.com.

Learn how to use Caltopo from this YouTube video.