Thanks for the reply from Aberdeen, SD. You're right about maps to some extent. I used to lay out timber up here and a point jutting out into salt water can be as much as 2 miles off on a USGS quadrangle! An Abney level and a good watch allowed me to redraw major feature locations on those maps. I really don't know how much correcting the feds have done with USGS quads here but they have revised the politically incorrect names of features: No ridges are called N_____ Nose, no more Squaw Creeks. A compass isn't that bad, even with the declination changing as rapidly as is the case right now. After all, if the task is to go up to a certain ridge and then make it back to the boat by dark the compass works no matter whether you have the declination set correctly or not. Finding a clearing that allows a GPS to find lots of satellites is very often not possible, but I still want to learn if pocket-sized GPS units can now better reach more satellites. Thanks again.