Hiking Tidbit We Recently Learned

[ponti33602]

Hopefully it is a okay to post here? Please move if this is in the wrong place.

Just sharing this experience from our most recent visit and hiking in the Georgia mountains. We are not experienced hikers but found this very helpful in keeping us on the proper trail especially when coming to intersections with contradictory markings.

Although it is expensive at a $99 lifetime membership with AllTrails, we feel this saved us countless mistakes on our 55 mile, 5-day adventure.

What it does for you:

***You can download trails/tracks from the site. This appears to be a “map overlay” of the trail. It is in a GPS standard .gpx format.

***You then can upload the track or several in our case into you cellphone GPS application or some separate GPS device. You can do this with the InReach devices for example as I have referenced in the satellite communication thread but from my research your phone is actually easier. The phone app we use is called MotionX GPS and only chose as we use it for jogging/races and are familiar with its operation. There are tons of them. Motion X is highly recommended on-line FYI.

***You can then bring the track up on your GPS devise. Then as you track your movements it plots you against the pre-loaded map. You can quickly see if you made an incorrect turn somewhere

From the picture the “red” was the original plot that I downloaded from Alltrails. The “blue” is the route my wife and I took. We altered it slightly and started from our van rather than the trail-head so we didn’t have to drive and there was a connector trail.

IMG_3888.jpg

Many experienced hiker/trackers would call this lack of using a compass and paper map “cheating" but at our stage in life we want to feel safe and heading in the right direction. :>

[MsNomer]

I've used MotionX for years. I download maps beforehand if I'm going to be off-grid. Never thought to combine with Alltrails.

[ponti33602]

Originally Posted by MsNomer

I've used MotionX for years. I download maps beforehand if I'm going to be off-grid. Never thought to combine with Alltrails.

I never found good "trail" maps in the plenty other than AllTrails. Being able to "trace" yourself against the trail made my wife very comfy at each questionable intersection and even if we made a miss-turn we could see in a few feet we took the wrong path.

[MsNomer]

MotionX has saved our butts twice in a big way. Last year in eastern Portugal, an unexpected snowfall completely obliterated the trail. Another time in Poland, MrNomer insisted that the track on his Garmin was consistent with his paper map. MotionX showed me that two trails parallel each other where we were, but the one we were on was headed to nowhere land. He does not like to admit that electronic gadgets can be better than paper, but paper can't tell you where you are.