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GPS Mother Files

 
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gpsjoe





Joined: 01 Feb 2004
Posts: 535
Location: Mesa AZ

PostPosted: 2/2/2010, 7:07 pm    Post subject: GPS Mother Files Reply to topic Reply with quote

Can you imagine having GPS tracks for all trails in the Superstitions and some roads and waypoints for interesting things as well and all in a single file? It exists, it’s free and I will tell you how to get it and how to use it to construct any hike you want choosing the trails you want to hike that day and downloading only those to your GPS.

Go to http://web.utah.edu/thorne/superstitions.html - Click on “File Information” and save that pdf to your hard drive. It has trail abbreviations followed by the full trail name that you will need.

Then click on “Entire Wilderness (max 500 points per track)”. When this opens it may look like a lot of gibberish and code but simply click on “File” in upper left then “save as” and save it to your hard drive. It should have a .gpx extension. If you have any trouble with this I could email you these files on a PM request from you.

Mike Thorne, the father of these files, is an Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of Utah. He used to live in Phoenix and hiked the Superstitions. He recorded the tracks for about 75 percent of the trails in the Supes and contacted Irv Kanode and me to help him fill in the blanks which we did. That is why you will see our names in the pdf file as co-authors.

For modern Garmin users let’s say you want to hike Dutchman’s end-to-end. To get this track onto you GPS first open mapsoure. Then open it again so there are two instances of mapsource on your desktop. In one mapsource open the .gpx file and select the tracks tab. Click on DMN (Dutchmans North) then hold the ctrl key and click DMS (Dutchmans South). Right click and select “Copy”. Go to the empty mapsource you opened and right click and paste these tracks into it. Give them a color that stands out well on your GPS – like red and download these to your GPS. This is a great way to use a mother file.

The tracks in this mother file are high quality and were recorded by us walking all the trails you see there.

I have posted a mother file for almost all trails on the Mogollon Rim including the entire Cabin Loop, the entire Highline trail and most trails that go off the Highline up to the Rim at http://gpsjoe.net.

I also recently posted a mother file for all trails in the Cave Creek system on HAZ.

I realize the mother file might be intimidating to some but you just pick the tracks you want to hike and download only those to you GPS. The procedure as described above is very simple.
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desertgirl





Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 3350
Location: Chandler, AZ

PostPosted: 2/2/2010, 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Thanks Joe -- This is awesome! Very Happy
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Shawn
I'll sell you map to Lost Dutchman mine!




Joined: 03 Jan 2003
Posts: 2592
Location: Ahwatukee, AZ

PostPosted: 2/3/2010, 6:47 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Will have to explore this but I spent several hours yesterday downloading and assembling files to put on the hand unit, was about "GPS'ed out" by the time I saw this.
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gpsjoe





Joined: 01 Feb 2004
Posts: 535
Location: Mesa AZ

PostPosted: 2/3/2010, 8:15 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

It is always useful to have several sources for the same trail. I am confident of the quality of the GPS tracks in the mother files. But even I will compare other peoples tracks to mine and look for any differences. If there are none that is just further confirmation of accuracy of both. If there are some, most often Mikes and my tracks are usually the correct ones but I would verify that by hiking the trail again and resolving differences.

Tracks supplied by sources unknown should be treated with skepticism. Some are great and accurate and some are not. After a while you get to know the individuals who consistently supply quality tracks.

Experience means a lot with GPS since we learn a little each day. If I have any advantage it is because I have been GPSing for almost 10 years now and have had a lot of time to learn it because I am retired.
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gpsjoe





Joined: 01 Feb 2004
Posts: 535
Location: Mesa AZ

PostPosted: 2/4/2010, 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Just a few words for those who may be following a track with their Garmin GPS for the first few times.

By pressing the in or out buttons one bar length on the screen can be 20, 30, 50, 80, 120, 200, 300, 500 or 800 feet or 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1.2, 2, 5 or more miles.

When following a track if you want to know that you are off track quickly then set the bar length (or zoom level) at 50 or 80 feet in the desert, 80 or 120 feet if hiking under forest cover, and 120 feet in canyons. This is for track following only. Sometimes I stop and zoom out to a much higher value so I can get the big picture but when I go back to track following, I use the setting described above.

There is normal variation or error with every GPS measurement. The best our consumer GPSs will do is 10 feet. Normal error in the desert (no overhead obstructions) may be 10 to 20 feet. Normal error under forest cover might be 20 to 40 feet and in canyons all bets are off. Error can be anything including a complete blocking of signals.

If you are zoomed in too close (20 feet) you could be standing on the trail and it may look like you are off trail on your display but what you are seeing is normal variation. If you are zoomed out too far (say 0.2 miles) you may be 300 feet off the trail and it will still look like you are very close to it.

True story. I was hiking on the Mogollon Rim with my friend and we had good tracks loaded. At one point I declared we were off trail and my friend with the same model GPS said we were right on the trail. I was zoomed at 120 feet and my friend was zoomed at 0.2 miles. I was right. When my friend changed the zoom to 120 feet we had the same image.
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windymesa





Joined: 06 Jan 2004
Posts: 76
Location: Peoria, Arizona

PostPosted: 2/6/2010, 10:40 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Thanks for sharing!!!
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