how can i use my gps when skiing?

December 27, 2006 8:37 AM

I have a pocket pc and gps device and i'm off to switzerland skiing over new year, is there some way that i can combine my favourite geek toy with my favourite sporting passtime?

ideally i want to be able to follow myself on a piste map, maybe also cool stuff like see how fast i can go/how far i'v travelled.

i have igo on my pda but this only has roads/towns on it making it kinda useless for tracking where i am on a mountain.

anyone know of any cool software, maybe OS maps or something with the topography of the swiss mountains?

posted by donbing to computers & internet (4 comments total)

motionbased.com
posted by neilkod at 9:04 AM on December 27, 2006

There's some info on a guy who did this in Utah here: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/04/ski_snowbird.html
posted by rachelv at 9:23 AM on December 27, 2006

VisualGPSce is a free PocketPC application that displays GPS data graphically as well as record the raw GPS data (NMEA 0813) to a file.

You could take this data, convert to a Google Earth data file (kml?) and look at where you've been skiing.
posted by mr_silver at 12:24 PM on December 27, 2006

What about geocaching in or near the ski slopes?

Here is a list of known geocaches in Switzerland.

You don't strictly need the map data -- just the coordinates. If you use a paper map to complement the GPS, make sure you set the GPS and the geocache website to use the correct datum point.
posted by blue_wardrobe at 12:53 PM on December 27, 2006