Which Way Wednesday - Topo reading, Contours & Elevation

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

This week, see some 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.

Note - at the bottom of the answer slides, you may see a reference for a “Lesson number”. That refers to a youtube video series that covers that topic in detail if you’d like to learn more.

Here’s the video that covers today’s topic.

This week - contours and elevation.

What’s an index contour?
Are contour intervals the same on every map?
How can you use them to determine elevation of a point on the map, or vertical distance between two points?