Anybody use GPS units on the slopes?

[Bullwings]

I was wondering if any of you have used a GPS unit of some sort to track distance covered, average speed, top speed and stuff like that?

And, if you have what kind of gps unit is it and do you recommend it? It's just stuff that i'm currious about on the slopes.

I think it's a lot easier to sort of guage and estimate how far you gone/ground you've covered when you're running/biking since there's more of a guage if it's a route you might drive by in your car, but i have no clue to guage distance at all while snowboarding.

[philw]

I used one a few years ago... quite fun for looking at where you'd been. You need to be careful as they do get erroneous results sometimes. The main problem was battery life. I just got a new machine as the tech's moved on, and this one has better battery life, plus now you can import your tracks into Google Earth and all that, so I hope to have some interesting tracks in a few months.

I would say that any GPS would do the job. The new chip sets do work better than the old. This thing I have is a garmin GPSmap 60CSx, bought in the US as they're twice as expensive here (!). Waterproof, and I did check that by falling in an Alaskan river whilst fully clothed.

[patmoore]

I wouldn't recommend the Magellan 300. It's too much of an entry level unit. I bought one on www.woot.com recently and found it has too many limitations for boarding and skiing. I've used it on a couple of unicycle trips and it isn't much better. Speaking of woot, today's offering is a NAVMAN GPS unit for your car for $250 (refurbished). The reviews I looked up were pretty good so I ordered one.

[Steve Dold]

I use the Etrex Legend, it's Not color, but it's easy to see and has great battery life (20 hours), and I use it for cycling and hiking and it works just fine. The receiver is not as sensitive as others but it's OK for me and I'd probably buy another one unless something better has replaced it. It's not good under trees (RX sens). It also has WAAS which gives a little more accuracy (it says).

I bought the Garmin TOPO USA software and never use it, I find it too much effort to learn and the topo representation is really crude. I use USAPhotomaps (free) to transfer routes and tracks to/from the GPS, and it has real USGS maps and crappy B/W photos too and is much easier to use.

One big reason I don't like color devices is that I find it harder to see the screens in the sun. I haven't studied the color GPS units much, but when I broke my old Palm Pilot and bought a color one to replace it, I soon wished I hadn't. I never needed color for anything and the horrible battery life, hard-to-see-in-the-sun screen and the fact that it ran the battery dead if sitting unused for three weeks made me really miss my old unit. Newer is usually better, but not always :( Same with my new color cell phone. I can't even see the stupid screen unless I press the power button momentarily to turn on the backlight.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I use USAPhotomaps (free) to transfer routes and tracks to/from the GPS, and it has real USGS maps and crappy B/W photos too and is much easier to use.

Can you transfer detailed map info to the Garmin? I thought that stuff was proprietary.

[philw]

You can transfer all sorts of stuff to Garmin devices. If you buy their maps (I have their UK stuff) then that's kind of expensive but good, and you get routing and stuff also. You can also get free UK contour maps and stuff if you google around a bit. The [new] Garmin maps are locked to a maximum of two hardware devices.

I don't know about screens and stuff. My old emap was b&w; the 60CSx is pretty good in all light I've used it in. Perhaps you can get a b&w version, but that would be a cost-based descision I think as the colour works well.

I forgot to mention... the 60CSx has a little memory card slot for micro-sd (or something) - if you get a 1G card (about £35) you can fit half the UK maps in it, which is quite useful for me.

Anyway, you really need to play with the devices I think.

For snowboarding, what I used to do was stick the device in my pocket and ride around all day, then look at the tracks in Garmin's application, then overlay that into a traditional contour map. With Google earth, it's pretty easy to get the tracks into KMZ format and then you're really having fun. Well, after a fashion. So for this, any old GPS will do, as you don't really need to use it for navigation or anything, right.

Summary: you just need something which:

(a) uses the latest SiRF chips (unless you don't ride in trees)

(b) can run all day on one set of rechargable batteries

© has a track log which will run all day

(d) has a USB connexion

And then you're away. (Just don't post erroneous max speed readings here ;-)

[Phil]

There are quite a few threads about this.

[FTA2R]

i am leashed to one of these b/c of work, but if you buy the mapquest app it'll tell you some of that stuff, including altitude. you can demo it for 30 days, but of course bberry is large to carry around.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

I wouldn't recommend the Magellan 300. It's too much of an entry level unit. I bought one on www.woot.com recently and found it has too many limitations for boarding and skiing. I've used it on a couple of unicycle trips and it isn't much better. Speaking of woot, today's offering is a NAVMAN GPS unit for your car for $250 (refurbished). The reviews I looked up were pretty good so I ordered one.

Pat, here is a brand new one for 279?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCYAJU/ref=pd_luc_mri/102-3842728-2464919?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=172282

Thanks for the "Woot" lead, pretty cool site.

[tcross.au]

i had a GPSMAP76S

they are a sailing/marine one that worked well, the s on the end stands for altitude and other features.

Used it heaps for sailing an some hiking. was fine just big.

[Steve Dold]

Can you transfer detailed map info to the Garmin? I thought that stuff was proprietary.

Not with USAPhotomaps, I just transfer routes, tracks and waypoints back and forth. I was thinking of transferring topo map info from the Garmin Topo USA to the GPS, but if it looks anything like what it looks like on the computer screen, I don't think I will because the info isn't anywhere as detailed as USGS Topo maps, and I carry those with me anyway.

I forgot to mention that the Etrex Legend is pretty darn accurate with elevations, it seems to always be within 20 feet or less if there is good satellite reception.

[philw]

I forgot to mention that the Etrex Legend is pretty darn accurate with elevations, it seems to always be within 20 feet or less if there is good satellite reception.

You could also consider a model with an altimeter of course. A digital compass may be useful too - it depends what you want to do with it.

[Steve Dold]

You could also consider a model with an altimeter of course.

I've wondered about those. It seems like you'd have to keep adjusting them every few hours for pressure changes. A compass would be handy for hiking around.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I forgot to mention that the Etrex Legend is pretty darn accurate with elevations, it seems to always be within 20 feet or less if there is good satellite reception.

The Legend is the one I have. I'd like to use it for canoeing but to make it useful I need to buy Topo Canada unless someone has another suggestion for northern Saskatchewan. I don't really need the topo info, just enough to navigate around the islands and shorelines. OTOH we've always used paper maps/compass and had no trouble. The GPS is just a toy really.

[BlueB]

The GPS is just a toy really.

It is very handy for ocean sailing. It is quite hard to navigate on sextant. For inland sailing it is not really needed, but it still makes life easier.

I've got an old Garmin 12, fixed GPS on my keelboat, no maps or fancy stuff. Crossed 2 oceans on it with no problems. I also had a GPS76 which could interface with my laptop and Maptech software, but I never used it. It just set in the grab-bag as backup.

Ohter day I scooped eTrex (yellow one) for $50! Will use it for hiking/skiing.

Every GPS capable of tracking 4 or more satelites will give you the altitude. Every GPS will give you true or compas North, so long as you keep mouving.

Boris

[Neil Gendzwill]

For your application it's definitely not a toy. But for me, paper maps work as well or better. For road navigation, I can't imagine that little screen would work any better than just looking at a map. For canoeing the Churchill where we usually go it would be good if you got lost, which is not that hard to do given all the islands and bays and such, but we usually manage with the maps fine.

[Steve Dold]

I drive a lot for work on fire roads through the mountains, these roads are unmarked, crappy, awful roads. Although I probably don't use the built-in mapping much, it's sure handy to draw the route beforehand in USAPhotomaps using the topo and aerial photos, then transfer it to the GPS and follow it while I drive. It's so cool to see a turn coming up on the GPS before I see it on the road. Sometimes it's hard to even recognize it in real life, if it's covered with brush and weeds.

[Dave Pushee]

I have found my eTrex Legend invaluable for locating my duck blind in the pre-pre-dawn darkness. We have to paddle our canoe about a half-mile down river, and turn into a small opening (maybe 8' wide) that leads to a backwater.

Last year opening morning was pitch black and foggy. The river is perhaps 200 yards wide, but most of the time, we could not make out any indication of river banks. I had the GPS preloaded with waypoints, so we were able to hit our marks right on the money. Without it, we would still be going around in circles.

I downloaded the track later onto a topo program just for kicks. Our downriver track was a real snake-fest, pretty much bouncing from bank to bank.

[patmoore]

Pat, here is a brand new one for 279?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCYAJU/ref=pd_luc_mri/102-3842728-2464919?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=172282

Thanks for the "Woot" lead, pretty cool site.

Wow, that is a good deal.

Yeah, Woot is pretty cool. I've bought about a dozen items from them in the past year. Only one (a WiFi card for my laptop) was defective. When I e-mailed them for return instructions, they sent a note back telling me to just throw away the adapter and they'd credit my account (which they did).