pinelvr

If you would take $115 for this I would be very pleased to purchase it. How do I coordinate getting you funds? Do you have paypal? Betsy/Pinelvr

I use a steripen now and am thrilled; I will never go back to filtering. I use it with gatorade wide mouth bottles as I'm not partial to nalgene bottles. I like the idea that it kills more things than filtering does. I do also carry iodine tabs with me in case of a failure in the steripen but have not ever had to use them.

If you are thinking possibly to the west of the city of Philly that's not urban cache? or are you looking for a mostly driving route north of the city? For day hiking, I'm going to try some caches west of city tomorrow. here they are...... go to 1) hide & seek a cache, 2) then google maps; 3) then in the google maps search - try marsh creek state park . you can click on the icons on the map and then the title and it brings up the cache listings. This park has a multi and an earth cache along with a bunch of others. - you could work your way through some of these in an hour or three or probably take all day with a picnic in the middle - they are not paved trails; they are not in the middle of nowhere either; many of the online listings have good hints and picture maps for the MCSP caches. There should be trail maps online for this park if you google it as well. If you are looking for something more or less rugged than the descriptions on this or in a different directions, just make a note in a reply post and I expect you'll get some more suggestions.

What a neat idea. And the "sounds" we hear on the hikes.....what a cool topic. I was down in Florida recently and asked a state park ranger what a nice outback type trail was for a full day hike. He directed me on one where 1/3 of it was within 100 feet of a major freeway. Sure I saw gators and snakes and wildflowers galore and even bear scat; but I sorta heard a little too much from humanity zipping by. A couple days later, I went on a trail in SW FLorida that I was sure would have only natural sounds; a small airplane crisscrossed for at least an hour overhead - as I alternately made splashing and squiching sounds myself. It was possibly radio tracking something - a felon, a big cat? I even hear they are now tracking burmese pythons (invasive) in some areas down there? What does a python sound like if you could hear it over the whirling of the airplane engine before it grabs you? Returning to Eastern Pennsylvania, I'm craving someplace with only "natural" sounds....this time of year - the birds calling, sometimes the state game lands are like that.....maybe this weekend.....

Hi - I bought a SPOT 1- (the tracker) and turned it on today. I'm feeling pretty good about the purchase for my own peace of mind and for the peace of mind those that know me and don't like me hiking alone all the time. Many places I hike do not get cell signal, I do bushwhack off the trail I've told everyone I'm going to take (sometimes) and other times, I occasionally take side trails that I haven't told anyone I would take. I also hunt down multi caches sometimes and these can take one in odd directions. The thought of crawling many miles dragging my survival gear with me and managing my dog if I'm hurt badly doesn't excite me. I found the tracker itself, new online for just less than $90 - $50 of that comes back in rebate. There were some on ebay for < $90 but it doesn't look like the rebate gets honored then. I bought the annual basic plan for another $99. I do not need to resubscribe again next year if I decide I don't want to. There are 3 possible levels of messages it sends out under the $99 basic plan: 1) a checkin message like "all is well" with details about your location 2) a send help message with location ( but it's not of a 911 nature - I would use for non life threatening injury and have it sent to a friend) 3) or a full 911 message notification to the local SAR authorities. I tried out the checkin message; it sends out an email to whomever you say to in your setup and it sends a cellular text message to whatever # you designate. You cannot change the settings of whom you send to while you are in the field only via your internet setup. These test messages were received by me within 5 minutes of sending and both messages included lat/longitude. The email that gets sent also includes a clickable link that you follow to a google map of your location - really really cool !!!! Additionally, you can set up a viewable page on their website that has your 1-7 day history including locations on it. You can password protect this and give it out to anyone you like; and you can enable and disable multiple pages with different information. If anyone wants to see how this viewable page works with a track on it - please send me a pm directly and I'll send you a link to see it. I'm totally unhappy about the extra weight and think they could have done this with less weight; mine clocked 7.4 ounces. I'll continue taking all my survival gear so this weight just adds even more !!!

I hike mostly in PA and go for boots for fit. I also strongly recommend trying out hiking poles if you haven't tried them. I hike with a dog so don't often get a chance to use two poles at a time because she is on a long leash. And in many cases, I just leave the one pole strapped to the pack but when it gets rocky, I unstrap it. I bought a short video with my poles to learn how to use them although there's probably things on youtube now for free. Even when I just use one pole on rocky trails it adds a world of possiblity for spending a little less time looking at the rocks at my feet and more looking at the woods as I pass through. You can sometimes find good pole deals at REI clearance section.

hey - speaking of packs & shoes in Bozeman - I just got a low top pair of trail shoes (hyalite on sale at rei.com) from Bozeman 2006 founded company I had never heard of www.obozfootwear.com ; So far, only about 10 trail miles into them so it's hard to really judge; but very very awesome so far - I discard a ton of shoes before 10 miles. I read some reviews on their hiking boots and they appear top notch as well.

POCKET Query. This may be the hard way around & pocket query is only be available to premium members; but give it a shot if you are premium; I love this. 1) go to geocaching by maps page http://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx 2) enter an address there 3) click on Create Pocket Query which is below the search box in the members only section 4) This will now bring up the pocket query search page around the geography you selected - alternately, you can go directly to the pocket query page http://www.geocaching.com/pocket/gcquery.aspx but you must then do the geography too on your search. 5) options for pocket query include about everything you can think of including terrain &/or difficulty ratings, any of the attributes, etc... - for this one - DO not put in any days to run - we are just doing a one timer. 6) Give your query a name and SUBMIT it (near the bottom) 7) On the thanks message that is returned on the next page, you can now Preview your search . If you have certain garmins or other supported gps, you can also now download the list directly to your device.

WATER? I was typically carrying a lot of water even on a day hike in case I get stuck out there. I've just added a Steripen water purifier to my day pack - I'm thrilled with it - this has cut down tremendously on the amount of water I carry and decreased my carry weight accordingly.

I've traveled all over the forums and found this out. 24K maps are much preferred over 100K maps. Oftentimes, the free maps on the link listed in reply above are preferred for not only free price but for detail of lines and features. I also found out if you buy the DVD version instead of the SD card version, you can use them with your mapsource software on your pc where you can load tracks back and forth etc to your Garmin unit if it supports that. I'm not sure if MAC/Windows so look for that. Some of the Garmin 24K maps that are not yet on DVD, are "due" to be released to not only SD but to DVD soon by Garmin; this only appears to have happened so far (3/09) for two regions in the US. As my state, pennsylvania, does not have Garmin DVD nor is it listed in the free ones, I have gone ahead and purchased the US topo one for 100K size. I found it at a reseller online for $30 less than Garmin's price (I even had a discount coupon for the Garmin one - which they gave me online when either I registered my GPS product or with setup of a mygarmin account - I forget which).

I just bought a Garmin Astro - it is similar to other higher end Garmins in that you can use map source or minisd cards for mapping. 1) I'd like to purchase detailed topo maps but I'm confused about the options and what to do. I don't understand why I would want mapsource versus minisd card ; what's the difference. 2) can i use non garmin maps like National geographic or google or anything else & if so how or should I only buy garmin. 3) Has anyone seen 1:100000 versus 1:24000; is it a big difference in the field?

I'm looking to buy a Garmin Astro GPS with dog tracking system with the newer collar - the DC30 - not the DC20 unit. Thanks bhrettew@yahoo.com