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mark a few of the major landmarks mentioned in your trail guide. For instance: minor peaks, rivers, railroad tracks, forest roads, and steep inclines (such as rock formations) are often mentioned in guides, and can also be found on your map. Pick landforms and landmarks that are likely to be highly visible while on your hike, and use a small letter or other symbol to mark those places both on your topo map and in your guide. It's much easier to orient your location on a map when you are sitting at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee, than it is when the sun is quickly setting out on the trail. Also, even if you have bought a special map featuring trails in the region of your trip, the trail you are interested in may not be represented well on your map. By following your trail on paper before the real trip, you can better understand the terrain, estimate travel time for each leg of your trip, and discover where you can find water.

While sitting in the comfort of your home, you can calculate your elevation gain and average gradient for any particular section of your trip. Shorter hikes can be calculated all together, but you may want to divide longer trails into shorter sections to calculate gain over a particular distance, which will give you a more complete picture of the difficulty of your trip. Choose sections between natural landmarks. For instance, try dividing sections at peaks, stream crossings, and trail, road, or railroad track intersections. This way, once you're in the wilderness, you will be able to remember that after you cross the creek, you have 500 feet of gain over four miles, before you reach the next peak.

The easiest way to calculate gain is to start at one end of each leg of your trip, write down the elevation represented by the closest contour line, and then count contours, adding the interval for each contour as your trail moves up hill, and then subtract the interval amount as you follow the contours downhill.

The easiest way to measure the distance of each leg of your hike is to use a piece of string. You will want to use a ruler and ultra-fine permanent marker to mark off a regular distance on the string. For example, on a 1:24,000 scale map, 1.3 map inches equal 1/2 real-life miles, and if you make a mark every 1 1/3 inch on your string, you will have a custom tool to easily count off the miles of your trail.

Place the string on your map, and anchor it with your thumbnail on the start of the section. Use your other hand to make

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