Gps

[redefined]

Who has em?? Are you happy with it??? What kind????

[Wise Old Owl]

Great Day - Good Morning..... Garmin, Magellan, and Smart Phone.... Over the years I have used all of them. As your thread grows - here is the take... Some will tell you "you don't need it for the AT" - others will swear by "Map & Compass" (old Skool) and the rest of us will direct you to the latest & greatest tool.
Keep in mind they are right.
For the AT allone... over the years the trail markings have got better. Still some get confused
You should still have some map and compass know how.

For choosing a GPS from experience I see Magellan as less complicated - and less learning curve and a little cheaper.

Garmin is grand - more informative, a little more involved, and more $$$. I have several.

if you can afford the mapping models that have the topo built in start there. The lack of a map and missing relief drawings is a drawback.

Smartphones with their lithium's and layered software have blown away the competition at 4 ounces. The software is young and needs a little growing up..
I am currently working with Trimble Outdoors and Google Earth. The best so far is Backpacker Pro App - You must install a large memory chip in the phone.. This is by far the cheapest route.

[moldy]

Almost worthless on the trail. I have used it on the trail in several sections. Prior to departure I plugged in all the shelter locations and road crossings. 1. Distance and direction to location is always wrong by quite a bit. It's is just no good on a twisty-turny, up, down and around trail in the mountains where your destination is on the other side of the hill. 2. It takes too long to turn on and download enough data. 3. It's too heavy. 4. On the good side, you can measure your walking speed. 5. You can know your altitude. 6. If you ever get off trail you can use it to get back on-trail. After a couple of days fooling with it I gave up and if just became added weight that I got no use out of.

[Tenderheart]

Almost worthless on the trail. I have used it on the trail in several sections. Prior to departure I plugged in all the shelter locations and road crossings. 1. Distance and direction to location is always wrong by quite a bit. It's is just no good on a twisty-turny, up, down and around trail in the mountains where your destination is on the other side of the hill. 2. It takes too long to turn on and download enough data. 3. It's too heavy. 4. On the good side, you can measure your walking speed. 5. You can know your altitude. 6. If you ever get off trail you can use it to get back on-trail. After a couple of days fooling with it I gave up and if just became added weight that I got no use out of.


Seems to me that you have reached a wise decision. For people who actually hike on the AT, a GPS is really, as you said, worthless.

[atj_Hiker]

I have a Garmin etrex & wouldn't hike without it. It was very accurate. I marked all points of interest in advance of the trip so I knew where all the shelters were along with water falls, connecting trails, etc. It helps keep the trip interesting. Once, I knew I was 1000ft away from a shelter when it started sprinkling. Knowing how far it was and suspecting a downpour was getting ready to happen, I started jogging. I got to the shelter just before the downpour. As mentioned by a previous post, it can be frustrating if you see your only half a mile from a shelter to take a break and 30 minutes later you are still half a mile away because you were walking around a mountain. I took my smart phone this year with a spare battery and barely made it after 5 days before it died. I saw one hiker that had a small solar powered charger that he used to charge the phone when he was resting which would be very useful if you decide to wise a smart phone.I hiked in the Smoky Mountains which is very well documented on the web with gps coordinates for about everything you can imagine. I will admit one time I was hiking up a really steep hill and the gps showed me 10 miles ahead of where I was until I got back into the open. I will also mention that I've heard from more than one long time hiker saying you will take a wrong turn at some point. I've never had that happen to me. With whatever you decide, you'll enjoy it anyways. Nothing like getting in nature to get away from the busy life!

[P-Train]

My wife wants me to take one through the Smoky Mountains so she can: 1. tell that I'm alive and moving and 2. Know when she needs to pick me up at Davenport Gap. I'll need to get one by July.

[Theosus]

My wife wants me to take one through the Smoky Mountains so she can: 1. tell that I'm alive and moving and 2. Know when she needs to pick me up at Davenport Gap. I'll need to get one by July.Sounds like you need a Spot or the InReach. A traditional GPS won't tell her anything until you get home and show her. If you have a signal and a hella battery, a smartphone might help. iPhone has an app called motion-x gps that will post to facebook, twitter, or email your position on command, or automatically, but gps eats up smartphone batteries. Some of the other posters are right though. In twisting turning backwoods areas a gps may or may not help. Sure, your destination might be 1/2 mile away as the crow flies, but when you have to zig zag back and forth and over a hill for three miles to get there, it's like trying to tell time using a football clock. But if you have maps it will show you where you are, close roads, and help you backtrack if you screw up. I have an old Magellan sporTrak. It's been a good unit, and works around ten hours on two AA batts. I wouldn't hesitate to carry it with me.

[10-K]

One thing you learn pretty quick is a (any) GPS is only as good as the maps you have loaded on it. I say this repeatedly, but the free topos from gpsfiledepot.com along with the 'my trails' overlay is not only free, it's been spot on accurate with regards to trails, trail intersections, etc. etc. on every hike I've taken my GPS on.

[10-K]

My wife wants me to take one through the Smoky Mountains so she can: 1. tell that I'm alive and moving and 2. Know when she needs to pick me up at Davenport Gap. I'll need to get one by July.

Send her a text.... At some point every day you'd be able to do that and as you get close to Davenport Gap you'll pick up phone service probably early enough so she can get to Waterville Rd. and pick you up from K'Town about the same time you get down there.

[PJWetzel]

Got a Garmin Oregon 550t to take on my 2012 double thru-hike. I don't carry it to navigate, but to document where I've been, including taking photos which double as waypoints. And I use it as my 'pedometer', to document how many miles I've logged.

I considered the smart phone option, but battery life is the big issue. The Garmin uses off-the-shelf AA rechargeable batteries, so I can carry all the spares I need, take all the photos I want, easily check my track. For navigation I'm also carrying the (water-resistant) paper maps. I'm old - and old-school.

For me, it's important to have a record of where I've been that I can use to 'prove' what I've done and to revisit my footsteps. That's why I'm carrying a GPS. I'll download the tracks to my computer and upload them to Google Earth. I'd hope to be able to make these tracks available on-line, but haven't yet been able to find a user-friendly way to do this (publish my .gpx or .kml files) - From reading threads like this one, I see tantalizing hints that it can be done, but I haven't yet found an answer that penetrates my tech-numb old brain.

[lkaluzi]

Magellan's a bitch. She gets me lost all the time on roads and always tells me to do illegal u-turns when she doesn't know where the **** she's at.
She got me so late once that I missed one of my closest friend's wedding. I hate her.

[Sly]

For me, it's important to have a record of where I've been that I can use to 'prove' what I've done and to revisit my footsteps. That's why I'm carrying a GPS. I'll download the tracks to my computer and upload them to Google Earth. I'd hope to be able to make these tracks available on-line, but haven't yet been able to find a user-friendly way to do this (publish my .gpx or .kml files)

For the sake of argument...

A track really wouldn't really prove anything, you got always be using one found online. When I hiked I wrote down my nightly stays. One could do the same but then use pre-existing shelter waypoints or a program like Delorme Topo to map their hike.

Anyway, try Everytrail.com, I believe it will make the track and post it online. GPS Visualizer will make a map but you'll need your own webspace.

[dshideler]

I took a 3 night this spring in GSMNP with my gps. I calculated the distances between campsites, trail intersections etc. thinking I could use my gps to track my progress throughout the day. The satellite reception was so spotty in the dense forest that it was completely inaccurate on my distance traveled. I was using a Garmin eTrex venture hc with their 100k topi map software.

[58starter]

I use my Delorme to show me where I am and to figure how far I have to go to the next campsite or shelter on the AT. It is really pretty good. Unless it is really cloudy and raining I can usually get a good signal. If the battery runs down I have a backup on and it also uses AA batteries in a pinch. I only turn it on a few times a day to see where I really am located and when I call my wife I can tell her the long/lat and she can pinpoint my location on my Delorme program on my computer.

[PJWetzel]

For the sake of argument...

A track really wouldn't really prove anything, you got always be using one found online.

For the sake of counter-argument, the tracks my Garmin takes are time stamped every few seconds. When I create KML files for Google Earth, that time information is embedded and used for 'fly-by' animations. It would be hard to counterfeit all that information. Also, I'm doing a unique dual thru-hike: stringing together out-and-back day hikes. All my tracks will have both directions recorded with slightly different locations (due to random error), and all time-stamped.

Of course it's impossible to provide absolute proof (of anything) - I'm just hoping for a 'court of law' level of proof, i.e. 'beyond a reasonable doubt' in the eyes of a dozen randomly selected peers.

@dshideler: You have a good point about problems with satellite reception in dense forest. Sometimes I'll get bad numbers on distance traveled. I'm hoping that, in my case, a comparison of the out-leg and the back-leg will give me a better chance at a true reading - another advantage of passing every white blaze twice.

[Sly]

For the sake of counter-argument, the tracks my Garmin takes are time stamped every few seconds. When I create KML files for Google Earth, that time information is embedded and used for 'fly-by' animations. It would be hard to counterfeit all that information.

Ha.. right on, looks like your thru-hike will pass with the Whereabouts Police.