Topo Folding 101

Maps... necessary as they are, I hate the damn things... and to make matters worse, the USGS sends them all out rolled instead of folded. It's been a long time since I had to fold a virgin map, and I found that online explanations were somewhat difficult to understand.

I present to you, Eric's Pictorial Tutorial on Topo Map Folding:

Our goal is to turn the unfolded map into what you see on the bottom left.



1. Fold the face-up map in half from top to bottom, making sure your corners all line up perfectly:



2. Sharpen the crease (And all creases from here on) with your thumbnail:



3. Open the map back up and fold both ends to the center line:



4. Unfold, so you see this:



5. Now the tricky part to describe... fold the bottom half of the map up to the middle, then fold back on itself. The description sucks, but the picture helps:



6. Do this on the other side. Continue doing this, folding each half in the opposite direction:



7. You should end up with this:



8. Finally, take the finished result, and fold it in a "Z" shape of three equal thirds:



9. The end.



10. Try not to get lost.