Weatherproofing your maps

Out for a hike or climb and need to weatherproof your map?  A slick way to do a home made lamination job is to use clear plastic shelving liner, available at most any large grocery store.  Be sure to get the clear stuff!  Cut out a piece twice as large as you need, peel the backing off the sticky side, place the map carefully on the sheet, and then press the other side of the shelf liner over the map.  You just sandwiched your map between two pieces of sticky clear, flexible plastic - more than enough for any storm.

For rock climbing route topos, punch a hole in a corner, reinforce it with duct tape, run a string/cord through the hole, and put the cord on your harness or around your neck.

If you printed a map from your mapping software onto an 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper, then this next tip works even better.  Buy a package of sheet protectors (the kind you can put into a 3 ring binder and then slip 8.5 x 11’ paper into) from any office supply store or well equipped supermarket.  They are: dirt cheap, reusable, weigh nothing, darn near tear proof, and, unless water gets in the seam at the top, totally waterproof. (Put scotch tape all across the top for a waterproof seam.) You can write on / draw on your map, and then reinsert it into the sleeve. All the other solutions out there (ziplock bag, clear shelving paper, map protect goop) do not have these beatific qualities . . . OK, the humble ziplock bag comes close.