Re: Good GPS for multi day?

Tom Russo wrote:
On Mar 27, 12:05 am, Dot <dot.h@#duh?att.net> wrote:
....


I also use the GPSmap 60CSx, and usually it sits in a little pouch on
the shoulder strap of my hydration pack when I run with it.

I forgot to mention that since food usually resides in my strap pouch. Got my priorities straight.:)

....

Honestly, I don't find the barometric altimeter and electronic compass
as useful as I thought they would be, and if I had to make this
decision again I'd probably just buy the 60Cx (no S for "sensors") and
save a few bucks.

We have a lot of rolling steep hills (glacial moraines), so the altimeter is the only real way to get a decent estimate of amt of "up" in a run. Estimates without the altimeter are way off. The gps estimates without altimeter are ok on single mountains where you're going up for 2000ft or more, but not the 70ft hills x 10-20 on our rolling hills.

As for the compass, duh, I'm not sure I ever calibrated it. Sometimes I don't agree with the way they bundle features, so get stuck with a bunch of features I don't want in order to get something I want.


To conserve batteries on most units, disable WAAS and enable "battery
saver." You'll get marginally less precision, but the difference in
battery consumption is considerable.

I think mine is turned off, but should double check. We're lucky to get regular satellites, let alone WAAS.


I believe it can handle Garmin maps, but most of the areas I run in
aren't well mapped or are rolling steep hills where anything being
slightly off might show you at bottom of hill rather than on ridge. Plus
70 ft hills don't always show up on 100-ft contour maps. So I never
bothered putting maps in it, which are another cost. That way I'm not
bothered by extraneous lines. People using them on long trips would
definitely benefit.


It definitely takes Garmin maps, and you can even roll your own for
free if you're motivated enough to do so:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~creek/garmin.htm
gives a pretty good tutorial for how to do it, although I use a
slightly different process to get the contour lines than he does.

I do this especially if I can get hold of good trail data from some
local source like a county GIS department, park service, or the USFS,
all of which is free data. Doing it this way gives you way more
detailed and current maps than you could buy from Garmin, but takes a
fair amount of up-front work. Worth while if going into some serious
wilderness areas. I always do this before a backcountry ski trip -- I
also use some GIS tricks to map out areas where slope and aspect are
especially favorable for avalanches. I haven't yet needed that level
for trail running, but I'm trying to get there. You might find this
process worthwhile for an adventure race, too, if you're a map geek
like I am.

Dot, you might like to do that since you find that the areas you use
are poorly mapped. If you get the higher resolution digital elevation
models from USGS or other sources and contour them, you can make
really fine contour maps, much better than the 100ft contour crap that
Garmin sells.

Thanks. Yes, I've been aware of ways of making own maps, but haven't had the real need or inclination yet. USGS is usually the base map for most undeveloped areas. Yes, they're the low-end up here. Many maps are 50 yo. Garmin maps are ok in the mtns and is what USFS inventory crews were using about 10+yrs ago (haven't kept tabs on what they use now). I should check more recent data, but typically "Alaska is different" - even the USGS dem is bundled differently up here. When the mapping software that I was using tried to add the USGS dem when it became available (maybe 7 yr ago), they had problems unbundling it and the resolution is different. We've got a bunch of real estate up here, and there's no getting around it. For perspective, the borough (equivalent to a county) where I live is about as large as state of WV and has well over 2000 miles of trail and 2 permanent parks and rec employees.

However, one of the prime local trail systems where there's multiple land owners and has lots of "issues." However, the landowners are now sitting down at table and talking about how to resolve some of the issues with people getting lost on the trails or too afraid to use them for fear of getting lost. They're trying to produce a labelled map of the area as well as get some signage up. I've been kinda acting as the glue between the landowners so this stuff doesn't fall between the cracks and have been doing a lot of the GIS labelling. The main focus is on trails themselves and connectivity. They already had most of them gps'd or got the data elsewhere. We've been using true color aerial photo backdrop so far since it shows the farmfields better than topos. But there should be topo stuff we can add. I'm just reaching the point with the GIS (OJT, 0-60 as fast as possible) when the main part is stable enough that I'd like to find some topo stuff, which may already have (not sure when they cloned the hard drive they gave me). Among the landowners or participants in this groups, we have NRCS, university, borough, and state representatives. It should be a matter of tracking it down. Because of various studies or resource development, we may have detailed stuff in certain areas. But that's always scary when we find detailed stuff since that means somebody is planning something there.


The ones I make are typically as detailed as 1:24000
scale USGS topo quads, whereas Garmin sells stuff that's more like
1:100000. When I'm really keen to have quality maps, I even sometimes
get really high resolution elevation models from the county GIS group,
contour them, and make maps out of them with local trail data
overlaid. These have 1-foot-per-pixel resolution and are almost
always overkill, but fun to get hold of.


Major trips get downloaded into TopoFusion, which has more analysis
capabilities than most of the garmin software, but I don't think it's
convenient to use for daily runs. The guys that wrote it are cyclists,
and into trail mapping. I kinda like supporting the private
entrepreneurs rather than big companies if they provide something that
works at least as well.


I've also used gpsbabel to offload tracks from my GPSmap 60CSx and
then into serious GIS software, or have uploaded the GPX files to
www.mapmyrun.com which will overlay them on Google maps or produce a
KML file for viewing in Google Earth. (actually, gpsbabel could do
that itself).

We've used g7toWin in our trail assessment projects. I'm using the DNRGarmin that's with ARCMap 9.3 for the gps data that I'm adding to the project I mentioned above. But I need to explore some cheap / free gis software (someone gave me some links) for when this license expires in 5 months. But TopoFusion provides multiple ways of doing elevation profiles as well as mile splits - including time spent moving vs total time for that mile. This is slick for those parts where I stop to refill bladder or have to take pack off for whatever reasons like getting rain gear out. I know how fast I was actually moving when I was moving as well as how long that mile took.


I think both use regular batteries. I know the 60 uses 2 AA, and
lithiums work great - maybe 30 hours, but I never remember to keep track
of when I put the batteries in so lose track after a few weeks. I know I
use it 13 hrs straight at RP, and probably 10-20 hrs after that.


Again, your milage may vary depending on settings like WAAS, battery
saver and electronic compass.

I might add the lithium batteries are fairly independent of temperature until you get in subzero F conditions. The winter racers up here have been using chemical handwarmers with their units when they get below -20F and down into the -40F range (there is a reason I don't do or aspire to do these races).

Dot

--
"Often, quantity of miles is not the answer, but rather quality, i.e. making your traiing specific to your goals.... The key was specificity of training balanced with the volume." - Scott Jurek (quoted in Trail Runner 49:16, Dec 2007)

.

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