Is a GPS receiver for me?

July 4, 2016 6:37 PM

My partner and I are amateur hikers, with me being a relative newbie. I'm interested in buying a GPS receiver but I'm not sure how they work and whether they'd be useful for us. We live in New York state and we like hikes of about 4 - 7 miles of moderate woodlands terrain. We've purchased some good trail maps (showing marked/blazed trails, woods roads, and unmaintained trails) with topographical features (and uses UTM coordinates, if that's relevant) and a basic magnetic compass (which we're learning more about using as we go).

Ideally I'd like to use my existing paper maps and my GPS receiver together to find places on my map. There are a number of well traveled but unmarked roads within the woods that we've accidentally turned on to when we've missed a turn, which I would like to hike (some of these connect blazed trails). I'd also like to keep track of milage and elevation changes. Being able to store hikes and upload them to my macbook pro would be awesome but not mandatory. It doesn't look like the look the cartographers who made my paper maps have made a version that you can upload onto a GPS receiver. If I can't use my paper maps with the GPS receiver that be a bummer but but I'd still be interested in learning more about them.

How do hikers use GPS receivers? How do they work? How can I use one on my small, half day hikes?

posted by OsoMeaty to Science & Nature (12 answers total)

Best answer: For your purposes, I'd look into finding an app for your smartphone rather than a dedicated GPS device. There are some really good apps available, and dedicated devices are expensive, especially for novices. The two I've played around with (on Android) are Gaia GPS and Backcountry Navigator. They provide the same basic functionality as dedicated devices -- you can record your tracks, get your mileage and elevation change, and move the tracks to and from your computer (Gaia has a web backend that makes this much easier, but BCN is all manual). You don't need cell service, because you can download the maps for the area you'll be in when you're still at home. The dedicated GPS devices have better battery life, but your phone should have plenty of juice for day hikes (just make sure you turn off the cellular radio and keep GPS on, especially if you'll be out of range of the cell towers). One thing to note is that GPS devices tend to get "lost" in heavily wooded areas or narrow canyons (anywhere they can't get a clear view of the sky) -- they may not give you an exact location or accurate mileage. That's one of the reasons it's good to have map and compass skills too (so I really appreciate that you're interested in using a GPS in conjunction with your analog tools instead of trying to replace them).

You won't really be able to upload your paper maps into any GPS unit without some GIS software skills. However, the smart phone apps give you access to a number of map sources, so you may be able to access the same information you have on the maps.

As you start exploring GPS tracks (either ones you've created or ones you've found on the internet), you should definitely play around with CalTopo and GPS Visualizer. CalTopo is a great free mapping tool, and GPS Visualizer lets you create graphs and various visualizations for your GPS tracks.

You can use a UTM grid reader (see here and more examples here to take the UTM coordinates a GPS device will give you and find them on the map. Make sure you use one that's the same scale as your map -- most USGS maps are 1:24. Here are some instructions.

If you're interested in learning more about land navigation from experts, look for outdoor education opportunities in your area. REI usually offers classes, and the Sierra Club may as well. Here's a series of Land Nav 101 videos that my local chapter has published. (We do an amazing annual backpacking class of which land nav is only a part, but I'm not sure how common that is across the country.)

Another great way to get some land nav practice is to find an orienteering club and participate in their meets. Orienteering is like a lower-tech geocaching (which you may also enjoy). It's technically a kind of adventure race -- you're given a map, and you have a compass, and you race to find all the markers on the map. My local club is pretty low-key and family friendly, so I've always treated it more as a hike with some puzzles to solve rather than a race.
posted by natabat at 8:00 PM on July 4, 2016 [6 favorites]

> GPS devices tend to get "lost" in heavily wooded areas or narrow canyons

This is where dedicated units shine: they have much higher-gain antennas than will fit in a phone. They also tend to be a bunch more weatherproof than a phone.
posted by scruss at 8:30 PM on July 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'd also recommend starting out on your phone. Use it for a while and if you find you are interested and find it useful, then consider a dedicated GPS.

FWIW, I do plenty of hiking on trails that are hardly there and rarely carry a GPS (and only occasionally use my phone for GPS purposes).
posted by ssg at 9:44 PM on July 4, 2016

If you buy a GPS you can put base maps on it, which is basically the same as a USGS topo map. You can add other maps easily if they're available for your unit. And it'll have much better range than a phone, be waterproof, use aa batteries etc. So probably not something you need per se but also not equivalent to a smart phone.

I think you can rent them from rei to try.
posted by fshgrl at 9:49 PM on July 4, 2016

GPS units work much better than phones in heavy tree cover and where the sky is obscured by hills. Their battery life is also 10x better than a phone.

Get a real GPS unit. Learn to navigate with map and compass, and use the GPS to check your navigation. Using map and compass will give you much better situational awareness, and you will learn the country better.
posted by monotreme at 12:14 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Expanding on monotreme's comment, the screen of a $225 GPS unit is big enough for you to see if this branch of a trail is the one you are looking for, but awkwardly small for checking your position relative to a river or town some miles away. Maps are much better for the big picture.

In your place, I'd start out with a phone app. My phone runs for about 2.5 hours using Google maps on the road. Hiking apps may be less demanding, but a backup battery charger might make more sense as a first investment than a GPS unit.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:11 AM on July 5, 2016

It'd tempting to just use your phone, but I'd probably go find a good dedicated unit to borrow, rent or buy. Phones have kinda decimated the point-and-shoot camera market, but the GPS capabilities of a phone are not yet as much of a category killer as the camera.

Looks like $200-$250 will get you there new, at least at REI.
posted by uberchet at 9:37 AM on July 5, 2016

I don't think there is much available for base maps for phones either. They take up a huge amount of space so I'm not sure how you'd get a good set on a phone. We've made road maps for our phones before (timber roads) and they have to be very simple because of data.

Having said that there is a park near me with a torturous trail system where everyone is basically lost all the time because the official maps are outdated or plain wrong and the trials wind and loop on themselves to a ridiculous degree (don't worry it's a smallish urbanish park, no one has ever stayed lost more than a few hours). Someone made a phone app of the trails and its the bomb. I would seriously kiss them if I met them. So if something like that I'd available locally it's worth owning.
posted by fshgrl at 11:52 AM on July 5, 2016

I feel like i should've been more clear above: people who never leave a data coverage area get by with phone-based GPS nav JUST FINE, but the phone-based solution is heavily dependent on data coverage.

In a wooded area, you can't count on that, so you need to be self-sufficient. That alone can push you to a dedicated device, even without considering the superior battery life, fault tolerance, and antenna sensitivity you get with a handheld GPS.
posted by uberchet at 12:45 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am currently 1284 miles or so into the Pacific Crest Trail. The GPS unit on my iphone almost always works just fine even when there is no data service, which there often isn't. I look at the PCT GPS apps hourly at least, and there's been exactly one period, of two or three hours, when the GPS couldn't get a fix. I'd want to be pretty sure that my phone's GPS wouldn't hold up before I spent money on a dedicated unit, if I were you. I think natabat's advice is excellent.
posted by Kwine at 4:41 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Try your phone first. I spend a fair bit of time hiking a goodly way out of cell coverage. I use Gaia GPS when I need something. If I don't have a good map downloaded it's serviceable, and if I do, it's great. It's not got as large a battery or as much durability as a dedicated unit. But you could do a lazy 10 mile hike while listening to podcasts on headphones and recording your track, and you'd probably get away with it with room to spare. Save the expensive, dedicated unit until you need it.
posted by wotsac at 5:31 PM on July 5, 2016

Best answer: There are non-free apps for smartphones that use free offline downloaded maps data - so although you have to pay once for the app, after that it's free. I use TopoMaps on iOS and like it a lot:

The key to good cellphone life in the backcountry is to get your phone to stop seeking for weak or nonexistent cellphone signal. When I'm backcountry, my old iPhone 5S battery will easily last a couple of days (with frequent checking of location using TopoMaps app) as long as I put it in Airplane mode.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:53 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]