I made it here without a GPS; just keep that in mind. (Compass Points Media / flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/compasspointsmedia/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
The thud you heard several times yesterday? That was my head banging against the desk in frustration.
I’m pondering a support group – the “GPS Ought To Be Easier But People Make It So Much Harder Than It Has To Be” Club. What do you think? Meet monthly. Talk about our issues.
GPS seems too good to be true, doesn’t it. You carry a device snugly in the palm of your hand that receives satellite information to determine within a few yards your place in the world. Find a sweet camp spot? Just mark it on your GPS device so you can return to it some day. Mark every waterfall, vista, campsite, water spring, swimming hole, fat tree, bear den you spy. Then go home, download the information you collected, including literally every step you took, and save it! Suddenly you have a whole map, a route and points of interest and the world’s a better place …
Things are, however, a lot harder than that in reality.
I have a lot of gripes about GPS units for hiking, a whole laundry list of issues that make working with the devices and software less customer friendly than dealing with the old Soviet KGB. I love the concept of GPS. I think with a few easy tweaks to the devices and software, problems can be rectified, which would make the experience of using GPS customer friendly.
First, there’s the overabundance of programs you can use to manage all the waypoints, tracks and routes (and who knew there was a semantic difference between “track” and “route”?). Garmin RoadTrip, Google Earth, National Geographic TOPO! Explorer, Trimble Outdoors – my head spins like an old fashion compass just trying to compare them all. And none of them – none of them – work the way you would hope they would.
Here’s an example from NatGeo TOPO! Explorer.
For those who aren’t GPS savvy, a “track” is something akin to a breadcrumb trail your GPS records as you hike. The device records your position every few feet or every few seconds so you can see the path you’ve walked.
A “route” is kinda like that, but it’s not. Get it? No? Okay, I’ll try again. A “route” is a drawn line that shows the path you will travel. Clear now? No? Okay, I’ll try again. You draw a route on the GPS software using your home computer so you can upload it to the GPS. That way the GPS can help guide you from point to point along a predetermined path.
Anyway, let’s say you go hiking at Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania, recording a track of your entire day. You go home and download the track to NatGeo TOPO! Explorer, and you have a nice blue line drawn of your track. You want to turn that into a “route” so you can upload it whenever you decide to return to Ricketts Glen. Simple, right? Just click on the draw-a-route option and move the cursor over your tracks.
Hahahaha, No! That’s now how it works. When you click on the route option, the tracks magically disappear. Argh! What would be even better is if NatGeo TOPO! Explorer would allow you to just magically turn a track into a route. But I’m not as smart as the computer fellas and gals who make this stuff, so what do I know?
NatGeo isn’t alone. Just about every program like it has user problems.
If I'm hiking in Sedona, Ariz., why do I need topo maps of Santa Fe, N.M.? (Compass Points Media / flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/compasspointsmedia/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
NatGeo TOPO! Explorer does deserve some credit, though. I lovelovelove having the ability to download individual topographic quads for a low price. See, the entire country has been divided by mapmakers into squares known as quads, and NatGeo allows you to download individual quads the way you buy Mp3s from iTunes. That way if you’re hiking in Sedona, you don’t have to buy digital topo maps of the entire Southwest region; just Sedona.
Unfortunately, NatGeo quads cannot be downloaded onto a Garmin GPS like the one I have. How stupid of me to hope for different.
And Garmin apparently has either not figured out how to do provide individual topo quads for download or they simply won’t allow customers the luxury. You have to buy expensive Garmin map software that encompasses an entire region. I just spent $99 for the Northeast, which covers as far south as Pennsylvania. Problem is, I live near the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland, so I hike a lot in Maryland and Virginia. That would mean spending another $100 for topo maps of the Southeast. But wait! The Southeast isn’t available yet, so too bad.
Why, Garmin? Why do I need the topo maps of Daigle Mill, a tiny hamlet in the northernmost stretch of Maine, when all I need are topo maps of Delaware Water Gap? Why do I need a topo map of Apalachicola National Forest, which I’m sure is a lovely part of Florida, when I’m only going to hike on Massanutten Mountain in Virginia?
To add to our GPS woes, Garmin has provided customers with the privilege of downloading entire regions of topo maps directly to a data storage card. Pretty cool since I don’t have to pay shipping for Garmin to mail data DVDs. The map technology, however, is unusable on my laptop. I cannot see the topo maps on Garmin’s RoadTrip, the software program for managing maps, waypoints, tracks, routes and so on. You have to acquire a code to “unlock” the maps, but when you have finally found that code on Garmin’s Web site, you’re given a message by RoadTrip that reads “Map Product Not Installed.” Huh? I just bought the flippin’ map!
Naturally, you go to Garmin’s Web site to find information about what went wrong, but navigating that Web site’s FAQs or help section is like bushwhacking your way through the Amazon … in rainy season. I called the help number and met an amiable technician who politely told me that the map software I downloaded for $99 couldn’t be used in RoadTrip. “As an alternative, you can use your waypoints and stuff in Google Earth,” he said.
Thanks. But that’s ridiculous.
You know what. Think I’ll just plan my next trip with a paper map and a guidebook. Worked for me before.
Have GPS gripes? Go ahead and vent in the comments section. I’m hear to listen.
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3 Points:
1. I like this angry version of you. Very pithy and fun to read. Now get some coffee you miserable Litizian!
2. Is there anything more annoying than branding that requires an exclamation point? First there was Yahoo!, now there’s TOPO! Makes me want to vomit my recently consumed Cheerios.
3. Since the companies probably make so little margin on the units themselves (if any margin at all), it’s in their best interest, seemingly, to make the maps and their use proprietary and arbitrarily expensive. However, judging by your’s and others’ frustration, it seems a pretty shoddy long term strategy, and all it will take is one company (Google?) to come in and eventually offer equal-if-not-better quality maps and software for free for the whole thing to blow up in their collective faces. Just my $.02.
Dave,
I entirely agree with you. Your text made 2 points:
1. Hiking GPS concepts and terms are hard to understand. I think routes are just useless, and every person I ever teach about GPS, I told: “forget this”. Another GPS software I use and like more than others is the GPS TrackMaker. Give it a try. Is not perfect, but so much better than other ones I gave a try. But for advanced operations, you have to be a software engineer.
2. Digital maps aren’t part of our reality. Specially here in Brazil. GPS manufactures such Garmin still thinks in business models of last decade. Digital maps are surelly a great way to make money, as soon as an open standart benefit everyone to exchange their own maps. Or maybe, like here in Brazil, having an open-source project to digitalize everything (using GPS TrackMaker by the way).
ps.: great blog, I am following it…