If you're like most of us, you spend a lot of time thumbing that black mirror in your pocket.  One of the most well respected and well used features of the modern smartphone is the mapping ability and it's use as a navigational aide.  Yet for all the whiz-bang of being able to track your routes on a map, plug in an address and recieve turn by turn directions, there are ways in which a paper maps remain top notch. 

With a paper map in your pocket, you'll never run out of batteries.

With a paper map, you'll never have a hard time reading it in full sunlight, or partial shade. 

With a paper map, you'll never need to wait for GPS signals to arrive, or to be thrown off when your gizmo can't catch them.  

True, with a paper map, you have to learn a few things about reading maps, and might have to unfold and fold it up a few times on the journey - but you'll notice things you might not if Siri was telling you ever step of every journey. 

A paper map allows you to see the context of your route - and though this is highly dependent on the detail and quality of your map, on a high quality map, you can see adjacent peaks, mountain ranges, rivers, and routes.  You can gain a good understanding of solar exposure and hillside aspect, as well as elevation and topography change. 

And paper maps can be truly beautiful.  Not to say web maps can't be beautifull too. 

If you're interested in having a good papermap of our local trail systems in your back pocket, I can't recommend the Trails Illustrated/National Geographic Logan Bear River Range map highly enough.  Detailed contour, land ownership, route distance and other details abound.  If you're ever travelling to other areas of the west and plan to travel by trail or remote roads, this quality of map is available for most well travelled (and not so well traveled) areas. 

If you want to get your hands on a physical copy of these maps before purchasing one, you can head down to the old Cache County Courthouse gift shop at Main Street and 200 North in Logan.