Routes & Tracks - Why?

[+GamblinTokens]

I think I must be missing something. Before we head out geocaching we always print out the pages to take with us. When it's not obvious we consult a map to make the caching trip more efficient, i.e. don't want to be backtracking in the truck unless there's some compelling reason to. We then enter the coordinates as individual waypoints into our eTrex Vista and name them. We pull them up individually and use the "goto".

 

If we're ever unsure of which cache we should do after next we pull up "waypoints" and then "nearest" and the Vista will sort them for us. After a caching trip we'll delete the waypoints we had saved. I don't think we've ever been on a caching trip where we hit more than 8 or 10 caches.

 

So what has me confused is what people use routes or tracks for? I can see using tracks (breadcrumb feature) if you're hiking quite a distance and want to retrace your steps back to your vehicle or point of entry, but are there other uses for tracks?

 

And routes, is there some really cool reason for creating a route? Or is it just another way to sort out the order to go after a series of caches?

I understand the concept of a route as a series of waypoints, but no one has ever explained to me the usefullness of using them.

 

Thanks much!

[+Jamie Z]

I've never used either feature other than to goof around to see what it did.

 

My one experience with the backtrack feature on the Meridian did not give good results for hiking. There is too much error involved, and the GPS was sending me all over the place in the woods. It might be useful to find your way back on city streets or something, but I've never done that.

 

As far as routes, I played with them once, too... but when I took a small detour, the GPS forever pointed me back to my missed waypoint. There is a way to "skip" a waypoint, but if I have to do all that, it's too much hassle.

 

Jamie

[+Criminal]

Trackbacks can help you if you need to follow a specific path back to where you began, like around a canyon or around an area of impenetrable terrain. Say you park your car at a trailhead and blaze off into the forest. An hour later, you’ve forgotten which way you need to travel to go back to your car. To make matters worse, you’ve crossed a bridge along the way and now a wide river separates you from the trailhead. The trackback will take you back along the same path, including that bridge, you used to get yourself to where you are now standing.

 

A route is simply a series of two or more waypoints. The route, saved for later, allows you to follow a specific path to a destination. Say, for example, you want to navigate a series if intersecting trails though a forest to a lake. If you do it right the first time by using directions from a guide or map, you would save that as a route. The next time you wanted to navigate that particular route, you would have your GPSr activate that route. The GPSr will point you to each waypoint along the way in succession until you arrive at the final one. Simply linking a series of known waypoints can also create a route. If you had a map of a national forest and could determine lats and longs from it, you could enter these into the GPSr’s memory, and then link them together; woof-poof you have a route to wherever.

 

Another use for a trackback breadcrumb trail woud be to hunt a night cache, where you could easily become disoriented and lose your way.

 

http://fp1.centurytel.net/Criminal_Page/

[+Cachetrotters]

Here in the desert, landmarks can be few and far between. The satelite photo shows trails nicely, but walking at eye level or in a car, the point-of-view change is drastic. Routes with waypoints created from the sat pics allow us to navigate without trying to remember how many left-no, wait, right, no, left-at-the-next-fork turns to take, etc. While you could walk across country directly with a GoTo, ya can't do it in any vehicle we own. If you miss a waypoint or detour, remove the waypoint from the route right then. With Easy or Expert GPS, routes are a snap to create and load to the GPSr.

 

don

[+Poindexter]

Tracks are nice for placing trails on a map such as topo maps that don't already have the trails on them if you plan on returning to the area for more adventures in the future. It's also kind of cool to see where youv'e been by looking at your tracks on aerials or topo's when you get home. I'm with you on routes, I rarely use them and just figure it out ahead of time or as I'm going along to the cache area. I think they are more useful for marine use than on land. I do have a Street Pilot III that has voice that tells you when and where to turn which is kind'a cool but not really necessary for me.

[+Alan2]

I have a Vista and load the routes created by Garmin Mapsourse Metroguide. The Vista then tells me when I'm coming to a turn and which way to turn. Using Metro in a Garmin V automatically creates routes in the unit to help you drive to your destination.

 

With Topo you can create a route in the woods folowing switchbacks, trail switch points and around natural obstacles beforehand on your computer. Then load the route into the Vista so you can follow the route in the field.

 

Alan

[+Brian - Team A.I.]

Routes/trackback are great features. Not too long ago I was in Wickenburg with a fellow cacher, and the tracklog proved invaluable as we had made an incorrect turn in the middle of nowhere on our way back to civilization. We'd have been tooling around in the darkness all night trying to find the way out if it hadn't been for that feature.

 

Brian

Team A.I.

[+Renegade Knight]

I'll second all these posts. Routes are great for getting to a cache that is off the beaten bath that has a lot of intersecting trails on the way. They keep you goingt the right direction.

 

Track are handy for backtracking out. Especially when you make a wrong turn and suddenly realize that nothing looks right but you are not sure where you went wrong.

 

Wherever you go there you are.

[+apersson850]

With the tracks on my Vista (not all models can do this), I can also see the vertical profile of my previous whereabouts. This can be done on the Vista directly, or after uploading the track to my PC.

 

Anders

[TahoeJoe]

Like Anders I like to download the tracks into my computer and create a vertical profile of my trip. The tracks can also show me how far I have walked. I always use the track feature when I hike or ride my mountain bike to see how many vertical feet I have ascended.

 

Lake Tahoe Geocacher

[+georgeandmary]

I don't use routes or tracks while geocaching but I do when mountain biking.

 

I save tracks from bike rides to create better trail maps and to look at elevation profiles. It nice to see how far I climbed that day.

 

george

 

Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more.

[+fishin'fool]

Routes work great for me navigating through city streets that I am not familar with.At each intersection that a turn needs to be done I mark a waypoint,then make a route out of these waypoints.You can adjust how far away before you get the arriving at destination screen with directions on which way to go,that way you know ahead of time what lane to be in and which way to turn.

 

fishin'fool was here!

[+Maeglin]

You can also upload tracks to your computer after all is said and done, to check out how you got to the cache and returned to your starting point. My first cache hunt ended up creating a REALLY twisted track, since I wasn't aware that the default "goto" behavior in my GPS receiver (Garmin GPS III Plus) for simply going from where you are to a specific waypoint (no route loaded in the thing) was to start taking you back to your starting point when you were within 30 feet of your destination.

 

I had to switch to the map view before I realized "oh, I'm here". By that time I'd already done quite a bit of confused walking :-)

[+DustyJacket]

I use routes for driving and not for geocaching. (Especially since it jumps to the next point on the route as soon as you are near your current point.)

 

I use tracks (and waypoints I create) when travelling around my assigned quadrangle looking for changes to make on my USGS topo map. I've even plotted new roads with it.

 

(And using the trak helps you fint your car after finding the cache, if you forget to set a waypoint for it.)

 

DustyJacket

...If life was fair, a banana split would cure cancer.

[Steak N Eggs]

Routes are use A LOT in the marine enviroment. The fastest way to get from point A to point B is in a straight line. When I navigate, I set the auto pilot to the same degree as the route line from "A" to "B", with the exception of minor course changes to compansate for water current and wind drift.

 

"My gps say's it RIGHT HERE".

http://www.w6hy.org

KF6VFH

TOYOTA To Often Yuppies Overprice This Auto

[+Prime Suspect]

Like dustyjacket, I use routes for driving navagation between caches. I first upload all the unfound caches in a 15 or 20 mile radius into Street Atlas. This lets me identify some good cache "clusters". I'll select a group of caches that I want to hit during the trip. Then, if necessary, I'll bring up USGS photo maps of the cache, in an effort to determine the best parking place. (I have some custom written software that makes this all very simple.) I mark the parking spots on Street Atlas as a Route Stop. When I'm done, I have Street Atlas generate the route. I may tweek it a bit at that point. Then I upload the caches (actually, I usually upload all the unfound caches in the area, just in case), and the route directions to my GPS.

 

Lastly, I copy the route driving directions to a spreadsheet (OpenOffice.org's Calc program), get rid of the columns I don't want, then print off the nice turn-by-turn driving instructions. Even though the route is in the GPS, it's good to have it on hardcopy too. That way, you'll know well ahead of time in which direction you need to turn. The Vista's 15 second turn notification is really too short a time to make necessary lane changes.

 

I used to print off actual route maps from Street Atlas, but I've found that I rarely needed them.

 

[+apersson850]

quote:

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Originally posted by dustyjacket:

I use routes for driving and not for geocaching. (Especially since it jumps to the next point on the route as soon as you are near your current point.)

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Later firmware releases for the Vista, for example, let you decide manually when to jump to the next waypoint, if you prefer that to automatic.

This feature was introduced with version 2.28.

 

Anders

[Cape Cod Cacher]

I keep a track of lobter bouys and a route back to the dock, or a channel, things I'll use in the dark or nasty fog. Course Deviation Indicator on the hiway map makes sense of wind and current using tracks. I don't use them on land.

[+RangerRick]

Seems like I have the most practical use for routes. In my swimming pool business, my employees are to go to a certain address and do a service call and then proceed to another. They may do 10 services calls in a day so I enter the route in my Garmin V's or Streetpilot III's before they leave the yard. The GPS unit will show them which job to go to next and also show them the shortest route. On my Steeetpilot III's, I could look at the info screen page and I can tell how long the truck sat in any given area and also the top speed that truck went during the day. I can also see the breadcrumb trail to see if the were sidetracked. I rarely use the info page but it is nice to have

[+Trees]

I tried out the routes feature on my Mag315 and later printed out the results on a topo map, put my actual route right on the road I was on. Question: on the Mag315 it has a section on how close to mark your route, I currently have it set on Auto, but can set in on .o1, .1, etc. When walking a trail, which incerment works best for you?

 

Trees.

[+TEAM 360]

Saving the routes and tracks makes it so much easier to find the bodies later...

[+Alan2]

quote:

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...Lastly, I copy the route driving directions to a spreadsheet (OpenOffice.org's Calc program), get rid of the columns I don't want, then print off the nice turn-by-turn driving instructions. ...

---

 

How do you do this? The best I've been able to do with the Vista is spread open the turn by turn directions on the computer screen and then print from Screen Copy button on the keyboard.

 

Alan

[+Prime Suspect]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan2:

quote:

---

...Lastly, I copy the route driving directions to a spreadsheet (OpenOffice.org's Calc program), get rid of the columns I don't want, then print off the nice turn-by-turn driving instructions. ...

---

 

How do you do this? The best I've been able to do with the Vista is spread open the turn by turn directions on the computer screen and then print from Screen Copy button on the keyboard.

 

Alan

---

 

I'm doing this from Street Atlas, not the Vista. After you have calculated the route, there are two different methods to get it into a spreadsheet, depending on if you're using Street Atlas 2003, or an older version (SA 9.0 for example).

 

If you have an older version, just use the Copy Directions To Clipboard option, under the Edit menu. You can then just paste it into the spreadsheet.

 

If you have SA2003, there is no Copy to Clipboard option for the directions However, you can save the directions to a file. Like so many things with the disastrous SA2003 user interface, it's far from being intuitive. I used the program for the better part of a year before I discovered you could do this. After you've calculated the route, click on the Print tab. Yes, I know that makes no sense. After you've click the Print tab, click on the Route button. There will be a group of check boxes. Check only the Directions box. Now you can click the Save To File button. This will bring up their pathetic excuse for a file dialog. You can select a folder for the file, and a name for the file, but you CAN'T change the extension. It has to be ".txt". If you try to change it to something useful, like ".csv", the program SILENTLY changes it back to ".txt". Furthermore, it will overwrite any existing file with the same name WITH NO WARNING. It's the 21st century, and we still have idiots writing code like this. Anyway, once you've saved the file, you can open it in spreadsheet program. Just remember that the file is saved using Tabs as delimiters, not commas.

 

[+Alan2]

PS I didn't notice you mentioned you were using Street Atlas. I have 2003 also, but gave up on it and bought Metroguide. Like you, I found SA2003 so counter intuitive and obtuse to operate. While Metro doesn't have all the bells and whistles as SA2003, Metro is straight forward, has enough POI for my use (lus SA2003 POI's are at home while they're in my Vista in my car), intergrates seamlessly with my Vista and the other Garmin programs. Also in my area I found that the turns by turns of SA2003 didn't warn me properly where to make the turns as well as Metro.

 

I'm stil waiting for Garmin to have a print feature though for the turn-by-turn although the Print Screen is not actually difficult.

 

Tks

 

Alan