X-treme Cartography

With extreme sports becoming more and more popular each year, the art of cartography isn’t far behind. So who knew that there could be such a thing as extreme cartography? There is no better rush than falling out of a plane and drawing a map at the same time! Well, that’s not exactly the point I’m trying to make but it could be fun. Back to the point. Maps are important. To me, extreme cartography is not mapping in extreme conditions, but mapping something extreme or using a map to do something extreme. First, we’ll start with mapping something extreme. Each person probably has a different opinion of what extreme is but we’ll go with mine for now. Mapping Mount Everest seems pretty extreme to me. Even if your sitting at home while doing it, it is the subject that you are mapping that constitutes what is extreme and what is not. What would even be more extreme is if you took that map and used it to climb Mt Everest. Now that’s extreme. So now that we have established some basic guidelines for extreme cartography, let’s talk about some other examples. The U.S military depends a lot on the use of maps for navigating. When a special forces unit parachutes into a foreign country in the middle of the night; they must depend on maps for orientation and navigation especially if the terrain and area is also foreign to them. Another example using the military is the use of range cards. Range cards are made by the gunners of heavy weapons on the battle field and possibly during battle. These range cards are actually little maps themselves. They detail the gunner’s field of view. On the range card, the gunner must draw a map of possible targets, dead space, and any civilian considerations that he sees within his sector of fire. This is extreme cartography! In conclusion, we have once again found another important aspect of cartography. Extreme cartography is important and fun, but also remember that safety comes first.