Outdoor enthusiasts love to guess about all sorts of things. We guess how many stars are in the Milky Way, we guess how fast a deer runs or we might even guess about how long it will be until that big, dark cloud dumps rain us. But there are times when guessing in the backcountry just doesnt get the job done. Specialty gear is available to help us determine how far weve hiked – and in what direction – and other tools are available to help take the guesswork out of purifying water. But there is a another useful tool overlooked by many avid backcountry visitors – the rangefinder.
Rangefinders are used in a number of commercial applications – surveying, mapping, mining, etc. – however for our purposes we will be discussing the portable laser rangefinder used by outdoor sportsmen and sportswomen.
Laser rangefinders calculate the distance to an object by bouncing a laser beam off of the object and measuring the lapsed time until the beam returns. Since the calculation is based upon the return of the beam, it stands to reason that a more reflective object can be measured at a greater distance than a less reflective object. Readily...