In this third module we'll get familiar with one of the most commonly used maps for hiking - Open Street Maps (OSM). OSM is a collaborative project to create a free editable geographic database of the world. Anyone in the world can freely use and contribute to it. Many web based and mobile apps use OSM as a base map for planning routes and navigation. OSM maps can be downloaded and used for offline navigation in phone. Let's take a closer look:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/
(open in mobile or laptop)

Search for "Indrahar Pass" and zoom out a bit as below. OSM shows lots of useful details:

Type of terrain: forest (green), open (white), blue (glacier), yellow (farmland)
Peaks (orange triangle) and rivers (blue lines)
Boundaries (state, district...) (dashed line)
Settlements (cities, villages, hamlets, dwellings)
Roads (red, yellow, white) and trails (dotted line)

Zoom in/out and pan around the map to identify the above elements. These are important to plan your hiking journeys. The bottom left shows the scale of the current map view - actual distance on the ground.