PastaPowered

Ooops, I just realized that this thread was concerned with the rescue effort on Mount Pillchuck. I think that was another effort that went on slightly before the one I was involved in. We were up along the PCT-N (#2000). The KMZ is here in case you're interested.

Howdy Folks, I'm the trail runner who found Jim Tuesday evening. I was using a GARMIN Edge 205 to track my progress and record my trip because I'm currently trying to raise money for the Washington Trails Association's 2009 Hike-a-Thon. It proved super handy to nail down my location and let the SAR team know where we could be found. Several of the sheriffs commented on this when they finially got me off the mountain and debriefed me back in one of the vans. Shameless Product Plug Here Let me say that GARMIN makes an excellent product. Thier devices are accurate in a lot of conditions (under trees and running amoung the Cascade peaks) and although mine is kind of old I still get reliable service from it. My track logs are published using their new Connect service. If any of you are out on the east side of the Cascades we've planted a couple of caches. We look forward to seeing you log these. Be careful out there

If I find one I'll send it to you Somehow I think that these things are going to disappear pretty quick.

Thanks everyone for your help. I was pretty certain that WAAS was indeed a signal correction process, but now I know exactly what it does. I ended up ordering the eTrex Vista, but while I was shopping for the device noticed that no one listed signal averaging as a feature. Not that its a terribly important feature because I knew that you can always walk away from a WP and then back again to verify your results. My son should be able to head out this weekend with the Vista and compasses in hand and I'm really looking forward to it.

I've noticed that several product comparisons on the web mention that a unit should be able to "signal average." Is signal averaging the layman's equivalent of WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System)?