Inspiration Point 10-18-08

[AlanK]

I hiked the Lower Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain, then headed for Inspiration Point via the Mt. Lowe Fire Road. I came down the Castle Creek Trail to Inspiration Point before reversing my original path. Echo Mountain took 45 minutes up and 43 down (a sure sign of an old man). The entire hike took 3:18. Temperatures were in the 70s and 80s.
Pix

I have recently seen some posts on various boards asking about accuracy of GPS, so I did a minor GPS experiment. The Lower Sam Merrill Trail has two mile markers that are claimed to be quite accurate. I measured from the start of the trail at the Lake Ave. gate, both up and down. My readings for both markers were within 0.01 miles on both. There is no pedometer that can match that.

[HikeUp]

I came down the Castle Creek Trail to Inspiration Point ...

Hallucinating again?

That's a fun area to hike in - lots of combinations of trails are possible. Thanks for the pictures.

Where's that pool of water (3rd to last picture)? Is it on the Castle Canyon trail?

[FIGHT ON]

I hiked the Lower Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain, then headed for Inspiration Point via the Mt. Lowe Fire Road. I came down the Castle Creek Trail to Inspiration Point before reversing my original path. Echo Mountain took 45 minutes up and 43 down (a sure sign of an old man). The entire hike took 3:18. Temperatures were in the 70s and 80s.
Pix

I have recently seen some posts on various boards asking about accuracy of GPS, so I did a minor GPS experiment. The Lower Sam Merrill Trail has two mile markers that are claimed to be quite accurate. I measured from the start of the trail at the Lake Ave. gate, both up and down. My readings for both markers were within 0.01 miles on both. There is no pedometer that can match that.

What gps make and model did you use?

[AlanK]

I came down the Castle Creek Trail to Inspiration Point ...

Hallucinating again?

That's a fun area to hike in - lots of combinations of trails are possible. Thanks for the pictures.

Where's that pool of water (3rd to last picture)? Is it on the Castle Canyon trail?

Typing too fast again. I took the Castle Creek Trail from Inspiration Point to Echo Mountain. I like that trail. The pool of water was part of a little creek about halfway down -- I could hear it running below me but it was pretty still near the trail.

[AlanK]

What gps make and model did you use?

I was using a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch.

I should have mentioned that, for those unfamiliar with tit, the trail to Echo Mountain has lots of switchbacks, so it is a good test of a GPS receiver.

[FIGHT ON]

I came down the Castle Creek Trail to Inspiration Point ...

Hallucinating again?

That's a fun area to hike in - lots of combinations of trails are possible. Thanks for the pictures.

Where's that pool of water (3rd to last picture)? Is it on the Castle Canyon trail?

Typing too fast again. I took the Castle Creek Trail from Inspiration Point to Echo Mountain. I like that trail. The pool of water was part of a little creek about halfway down -- I could hear it running below me but it was pretty still near the trail.

It's the GU. I KNOW IT! TRUE SIGN OF THE DEVIL!!!

[FIGHT ON]

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS ?
You wear this thing on your wrist while you are hiking?

[AlanK]

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS ?
You wear this thing on your wrist while you are hiking?

First of all... God, am I sorry about the extra "t." Ttypos should be banned.

I do wear the GPS thing on my wrist sometimes when running or hiking. I barely notice it. Nice device.

[FIGHT ON]

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS ?
You wear this thing on your wrist while you are hiking?

First of all... God, am I sorry about the extra "t." Ttypos should be banned.

I do wear the GPS thing on my wrist sometimes when running or hiking. I barely notice it. Nice device.

I thought you wore them on your hip or something. This is even worse! swinging the devise all over the place? This adds to its inaccuracy. A measuring wheel is more accurate.

[AlanK]

I do wear the GPS thing on my wrist sometimes when running or hiking. I barely notice it. Nice device.

I thought you wore them on your hip or something. This is even worse! swinging the devise all over the place? This adds to its inaccuracy. A measuring wheel is more accurate.

The motion of the wrist has no measurable effect.

Accuracy? I just showed you that the thing can be accurate to better than 1%.

Measuring wheels are great on even terrain, but no one hikes with one anyway. They are irrelevant to mist hiking discussions.

GPS enables cruse missiles to hit specific buildings hundreds of miles away. You may or may not like that application, but the technology works. The fact that you pretend it doesn't has no effect on the real world.

[HikeUp]

First of all... God, am I sorry about the extra "t."

Amen. Amazing how one typo can lead an obsessed person to ruin yet another thread.

[Tim]

FO, I don't think it's cool to keep posting Hikin' Jim's picture like that. You should take it down. People tease you about the nipple guy but we know it's not you so no one has been posting your picture.

[FIGHT ON]

I do wear the GPS thing on my wrist sometimes when running or hiking. I barely notice it. Nice device.

I thought you wore them on your hip or something. This is even worse! swinging the devise all over the place? This adds to its inaccuracy. A measuring wheel is more accurate.

The motion of the wrist has no measurable effect.

Accuracy? I just showed you that the thing can be accurate to better than 1%.

Measuring wheels are great on even terrain, but no one hikes with one anyway. They are irrelevant to mist hiking discussions.

GPS enables cruse missiles to hit specific buildings hundreds of miles away. You may or may not like that application, but the technology works. The fact that you pretend it doesn't has no effect on the real world.

No measurable effect? It gets worse all the time!
How accurate could a device be if it does not record it's route?

Accuracy? What you showed me proves nothing! Who put those posts on that trail and how did they measure their distances in the first place?

People do hike with measuring wheels. Tom Harrison does along with anyone else who wants to "know" how far distances are on trails. They use them because they are more accurate than gps units. The wheel is on the trail. on it. like on the surface? right where you hike? Not hovering 3 feet above the trail and not swinging all over the place back and forth as your arm swings all over the place. Can you imagine trying to measure the actual route of your gps unit doing that? crazy.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm talking about this feature only. measuring distances on trails vs a wheel. no contest.

I'm not pretending about anything. You can carry a gps all you like

[FIGHT ON]

I came down the Castle Creek Trail to Inspiration Point ...

Hallucinating again?

obsessed huh?
Explain this. You phony!

[AlanK]

No measurable effect? It gets worse all the time!
How accurate could a device be if it does not record it's route?

What in the hell are you talking about?

Accuracy? What you showed me proves nothing! Who put those posts on that trail and how did they measure their distances in the first place?

I believe that the distances were measured with a wheel.

People do hike with measuring wheels. Tom Harrison does along with anyone else who wants to "know" how far distances are on trails. They use them because they are more accurate than gps units. The wheel is on the trail. on it. like on the surface? right where you hike? Not hovering 3 feet above the trail and not swinging all over the place back and forth as your arm swings all over the place. Can you imagine trying to measure the actual route of your gps unit doing that? crazy.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm talking about this feature only. measuring distances on trails vs a wheel. no contest.

Tom Harrison uses wheels rather rarely. No one uses them regularly on hikes. If you go out some day and do what people normally do, you do not follow a prescribed route exactly. And you do not have a wheel. In that case, the best way to know how far you've been, assuming you care to know, is GPS.

That said, I'll admit that this pseudo conversation is futile. You are not interested in having a coherent conversation and and it is foolish of me to pretend otherwise. Signing out at the outset, as I did no the SGW board recently after one of your provocations, is a better course of action.

[FIGHT ON]

No measurable effect? It gets worse all the time!
How accurate could a device be if it does not record it's route?

What in the hell are you talking about?

Accuracy? What you showed me proves nothing! Who put those posts on that trail and how did they measure their distances in the first place?

I believe that the distances were measured with a wheel.

People do hike with measuring wheels. Tom Harrison does along with anyone else who wants to "know" how far distances are on trails. They use them because they are more accurate than gps units. The wheel is on the trail. on it. like on the surface? right where you hike? Not hovering 3 feet above the trail and not swinging all over the place back and forth as your arm swings all over the place. Can you imagine trying to measure the actual route of your gps unit doing that? crazy.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm talking about this feature only. measuring distances on trails vs a wheel. no contest.

Tom Harrison uses wheels rather rarely. No one uses them regularly on hikes. If you go out some day and do what people normally do, you do not follow a prescribed route exactly. And you do not have a wheel. In that case, the best way to know how far you've been, assuming you care to know, is GPS.

That said, I'll admit that this pseudo conversation is futile. You are not interested in having a coherent conversation and and it is foolish of me to pretend otherwise. Signing out at the outset, as I did no the SGW board recently after one of your provocations, is a better course of action.

wonder when he uses a wheel? WHEN HE WANTS TO MEASURE A TRAIL!
That's what he does, for a living! PEOPLE BUY HIS MAPS.
bottom line. wheels are more accurate than gps. period. and that has been my position all along and it can not be refuted.
btw? who posted these words? "I have recently seen some posts on various boards asking about accuracy of GPS, so I did a minor GPS experiment. The Lower Sam Merrill Trail has two mile markers that are claimed to be quite accurate. I measured from the start of the trail at the Lake Ave. gate, both up and down. My readings for both markers were within 0.01 miles on both. There is no pedometer that can match that."
It's impossible to conduct a conversation with you. You always end up the same way. unable to answer the simplest questions!

[JMunaretto]

Instead of bickering, someone needs cite some sort of comparison of trail distances measured by map, wheel, and gps.

[FIGHT ON]

Instead of bickering, someone needs cite some sort of comparison of trail distances measured by map, wheel, and gps.

Any time!

[AlanK]

Instead of bickering, someone needs cite some sort of comparison of trail distances measured by map, wheel, and gps.

Actually, not. I have no problems with claims that a wheel is a good way to get accurate measurements under some circumstances. The problem is that people do not carry wheels when hiking. In addition, they are quite difficult to use on the rocky trails that are typically encountered on hikes. I have used wheels to measure running courses many times, so this is not speculation. Tom Harrison rarely uses wheels and most otf the distances on his maps were obtained by other means.

We can discuss GPS vs. map separately, but most interesting hikes are not entirely on marked trails and are hard to measure accurately using map alone. GPS is extremely useful because it produces tracks that do not depend upon staying on trail.

[FIGHT ON]

Instead of bickering, someone needs cite some sort of comparison of trail distances measured by map, wheel, and gps.

Actually, not. I have no problems with claims that a wheel is a good way to get accurate measurements under some circumstances. The problem is that people do not carry wheels when hiking. In addition, they are quite difficult to use on the rocky trails that are typically encountered on hikes. I have used wheels to measure running courses many times, so this is not speculation. Tom Harrison rarely uses wheels and most otf the distances on his maps were obtained by other means.

We can discuss GPS vs. map separately, but most interesting hikes are not entirely on marked trails and are hard to measure accurately using map alone. GPS is extremely useful because it produces tracks that do not depend upon staying on trail.

This is all a distraction from my claim. Alan. listen. on trails. a wheel is more accurate than a gps. Forget about if people do or do not regularly carry a wheel. That is off point. I will keep repeating it forever! Wheels ride on the surface of the "trail". GPS are not "on" the trail. And in your case it even gets worse! Not only is the gps above the surface that you claim to be measuring but it is swinging randomly from side to side, back and forth in every direction! I was prepared to argue with a gps fixed to a hip belt but this is a no brainer! Heck I was rating accuracy in this order before , first a wheel, second a gps and then the pedometer. A swinging measuring device (gps)vs a pedometer would be competing for second place. Would be a photo finish!

[AlanK]

This is all a distraction from my claim. Alan. listen. on trails. a wheel is more accurate than a gps. Forget about if people do or do not regularly carry a wheel. That is off point. I will keep repeating it forever! Wheels ride on the surface of the "trail". GPS are not "on" the trail. And in your case it even gets worse! Not only is the gps above the surface that you claim to be measuring but it is swinging randomly from side to side, back and forth in every direction! I was prepared to argue with a gps fixed to a hip belt but this is a no brainer! Heck I was rating accuracy in this order before , first a wheel, second a gps and then the pedometer. A swinging measuring device (gps)vs a pedometer would be competing for second place. Would be a photo finish!

You work with proof by assertion. I am an experimental physicist. I work with empirical data.

I will look up more GPS data when I have time. Meanwhile, I have done at least one relevant experiment. I have a growing list of measurements of trails in which the distance measured in one direction is within 1% of the distance measured going the reverse direction. This despite irrelevant arm swinging, etc. I have also compared GPS measurements with known distances, although most of those comparisons are on roads, not trails. However, my list of comparisons on measured trails is growing and GPS comes out very well.

I also have considerable experience with measuring wheels. They are great on roads, where continuous contact with the ground is relatively easy. They do less well on rocky terrain because they are not in constant contact. It is easy to make errors exceeding 1%. Actually, one needs to be careful in even defining distance in such a case because an ant going from point A to point B will cover a significantly greater distance than a human being (or a measuring wheel).

However, as I said before, I am not really interested in arguing about the accuracy of wheels. Even if they are more accurate than GPS (I do not concede that in general but would be completely untroubled if it were true), they have little practical value or relevance in most hiking situations.

Pedometers are far inferior to GPS. They are based on the assumptions that stride length is (a) known and (b) constant. The former is iffy and the latter is simply untrue. One's stride changes length a lot depending on terrain, fatigue, etc.

[FIGHT ON]

Ya know the more I think about these contraptions, the worse they become.
I don't know how often they take readings. I've heard they vary. And also they can be off by meters on every reading. How accurate is that? But let's just say your gadget takes a reading every ten seconds for example. You know that you can round a corner of a switchback in less time than that so you end up not including that part of the trail. If it takes readings every 5 seconds it still misses some of it. Every 4 seconds it. gets more accurate but still it is taking straight line readings from point to point. The less time between readings the more precise it becomes. Ok let's say it takes a reading every .01 of a second. First of all you have to keep in mind that it could be off by meters in any direction. Second, again, where exactly is it? It's up in the air on your wrist! and were is your wrist? Moving back and forth, up and down, all over the place. Surely you can see that your wrist movements are not representative of the trail. Ants? no. were talking about people walking on a surface. not ants. Surface? (trail) yes. Measuring with something above the trail, approximately 3 feet, moving all over the place? If you could zoom in and follow the actual path of your wrist, I'm sure you would agree it was way more distance than the trail distance. NO. Seriously this gets funnier by the second.
Again. These things look like fun. and they are good for locating where you are and I intend to use them for that. And elevations. And I can see how fun it is to make maps and elevation profiles. It's fun! I can see it. BUT. for measuring distances on trails, they are not as accurate as a simple wheel. And again, AGAIN. I am not considering how inconvenient or convenient the wheel is against a wristwatch device. and how many people use either one. Only which one is more accurate. Making difference claims of distances on trails that have been measured with a wheel using a device that is held in the air makes no sense.
Come to think of it I bet if you tied a string to it and dragged it on the trail as you went would be closer.

[JMunaretto]

Heck I was rating accuracy in this order before , first a wheel, second a gps and then the pedometer. A swinging measuring device (gps)vs a pedometer would be competing for second place. Would be a photo finish!

Dude, you're crazy!

[AlanK]

The little experiment I reported in the first post of this thread was conceived at the spur of the moment as a way to provide FO some insight into the empirical accuracy of GPS. The experiment went well but it did not have the intended effect. We all have our failures. Such is life.

FO, I am not a fan of the phrase "let's agree to disagree." because it is always used in situations like this one in which disagreement is already established. I don't see this conversation going anywhere useful, though, so we will have to be content to just disagree. You can look for me out on the trails with my GPS watch and I can look for you pushing your measuring wheel.

[Hikin_Jim]

I am an experimental physicist.

Alan is a physicist. FIGHT ON is a man-boob obsessed hiker. Let me think for a minute here on who's more credible ...

Dude, you're crazy!

No! Surely not our nice, reasonable FIGHT ON.

[FIGHT ON]

Heck I was rating accuracy in this order before , first a wheel, second a gps and then the pedometer. A swinging measuring device (gps)vs a pedometer would be competing for second place. Would be a photo finish!

Dude, you're crazy!

lol. I am crazy, but, I'm right! an idiot can say that 2 plus 2 is 4 and just because he is an idiot doesn't mean the answer is wrong! Even an idiot can be right! and I am RIGHT! (about gps being less accurate than a wheel to measure distances on trails) Especially if it is being swung from here to there, up and down, two and fro, pick your nose, and all over the place instead of traveling directly on the surface that is supposed to be measured.
Sure would look nuts holding a wheel up in the air and rolling it on some imaginary surface and saying "THIS TRAIL IS THIS LONG". GIVE ME A BREAK PEOPLE. The more accurate the device reads the less accurate it is when used on a wrist! (if it reads every ten seconds then it measures a straight line between the two points. the shorter the time between readings the more accurate it gets until its following the exact movements of where it is.) So it's one of those no win, no win situations. If you put the device on the surface and if it records a continuous line. (like a wheel does) Then it gets more accurate. And again, these things have error in their readings. Call the manufacture. They say some readings are off BY METERS! they take averages, even Alan says he has to use some formula for the elevation gain. Some averaging thing a ma bob bologna. Trails aren't straight! how reliable is that?
Look.
I am not against using gps devices. It must be fun to look at it when you hike, take readings, find out where you are stuff. It's just not as accurate as people say when it comes to measuring our trails. simple as that.

[Hikin_Jim]

Heck I was rating accuracy in this order before , first a wheel, second a gps and then the pedometer. A swinging measuring device (gps)vs a pedometer would be competing for second place. Would be a photo finish!

Dude, you're crazy!

lol. I am crazy ... an idiot can say that 2 plus 2 is 4 and just because he is an idiot doesn't mean the answer is wrong! Even an idiot can be right!

FIGHT ON, we appreciate your self-assessment. Thanks for being honest with us.

[FIGHT ON]

The little experiment I reported in the first post of this thread was conceived at the spur of the moment as a way to provide FO some insight into the empirical accuracy of GPS. The experiment went well but it did not have the intended effect. We all have our failures. Such is life.

FO, I am not a fan of the phrase "let's agree to disagree." because it is always used in situations like this one in which disagreement is already established. I don't see this conversation going anywhere useful, though, so we will have to be content to just disagree. You can look for me out on the trails with my GPS watch and I can look for you pushing your measuring wheel.

If you refuse to face facts then there is nothing I can do to help.
how often does your wrist thing take readings when you walk?

[AlanK]

If you refuse to face facts then there is nothing I can do to help.

I am willing to struggle through life without your help. On that we can agree!

[FIGHT ON]

Dude, you're crazy!

lol. I am crazy ... an idiot can say that 2 plus 2 is 4 and just because he is an idiot doesn't mean the answer is wrong! Even an idiot can be right!

FIGHT ON, we appreciate your self-assessment. Thanks for being honest with us.

This I can not deny. but being the man nipple guy?, that's where I gotta say, YOU KNOW, IT'S NOT ME!