Best tool for tracking hikes?

A Topo map and compass.

How many days are you out?

Do you carry a smartphone with you anyways?

Other than Nicks bomb proof answer, answers to those two questions can help guide an suggestion.

Check out Gaia gps. Its $20 for your phone. Real time tracking while you are in the field. Topo or satelight maps. You can preload gpx tracks to follow. You can take pictures in the app that get gps marked on your trip and then you can publish a report of the trip. I used it last month for the first time and really liked it. I got over 2 long says of gps/camera one a single phone charge.

@Nick – Sure, I always carry that in case, but I’d like something with extra features and an instantaneous location pinpoint. It’s a luxury item, I’m aware, but I’m wanting to give it a go.

@Brad – This obviously changes. It might just be a day hike, or it could be 9 days in the Gates of the Arctic backcountry that I’m doing later this year. Mostly it’s for day hikes up to three nights though.

@Jeff – I actually just downloaded this yesterday. Going to test it out in Zion and see how it goes with the GPS reception etc. Thanks.

+1 on Gaia

@slbear how do you find the service to be with Gaia? Are there many times when it can’t pinpoint your location in the backcountry?

Matt- I used an GPS in the backcountry for the first time last summer on the Wind River High Route (iPhone with Gaia GPS) and in airplane mode I had 60% battery left after a week of light/moderate use.  I didn’t however use any tracking so I am not sure how much that would drain the battery.  My guess is using regular bread crumb style tracking would use up batteries pretty fast. That’s probably not a problem on a weekend trip but 9 days that can be more of an issue.

Tell me me more about your Gates of The Arctic trip. I was there in 2015. (PM me if you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole here)

Your service is dependent on your phone/GPS hardware. Gaia provides the UI, map, settings, but not GPS accuracy/service.

Lots of tree cover, deep canyons etc can interfere with GPS accuracy.  The more you set your device to check your location the more accurate your track should be and more battery life you use.

I didn’t have any problems with Gaia inWRR though admittedly that is easy terrain for a GPS – clear view of the sky and all.

@brad Love the Winds, one of my favorite places on earth. We were there last year, but only for 2 nights unfortunately. Definitely will have to get back ASAP. When you say you were using Gaia, but not using tracking, do you mean you were just using it like a physical topo map? Or did you still have your location showing on top of the topo map but just not a line tracking where you had been? Sorry, completely new to GPS tracking tools and the like.

I’ll message you RE GoTA.

@Paul Thanks Paul, I figured. I wonder if it might be worth carrying a Garmin handheld device for the increased service…

If I want to record a track over multiple days, I use my Garmin Etrex 20.  I did a test on it and got about 57 hours on a pair of AA lithium batteries.

If I just want to turn on and check in sometimes for position, distance, speed, etc. Gaia (as mentioned) on a smart phone is a much better option IMO.  It has a large choice of good quality maps (OpenHikingMap is my favourite), cheap price, full featured, and easy to use.

Edit:  Both have occasionally lost position for short periods in heavily treed valleys.

Matt- I used it for positioning and for that it updated almost instantly.  What I didn’t do was have it save breadcrumbs so Look at our actual line later.

I mapped out the route in Caltopo and exported that to Gaia.

As Nick said:
A Topo map and compass.

something with extra features and an instantaneous location pinpoint.
Forgive me, but why?
The ‘extra features’ are worth what? As far as I can see, they are just marketing spin. I cannot see anything of value there. Mind, you, I am not sure I can even think of any ‘extra features’ of relevance.
As for ‘instantaneous location pinpoint’, don’t you have that with a map and compass, at least to the extent really needed? To be sure, if you have been travelling blind for the last few hours, you might have some uncertainty, but the solution there is simple.

OK, I am being aggressively challenging. But why carry extra weight, when brain-power is a better solution?

Cheers

I like my old school Garmin GPSmap 62st.  I’ve used it in Alaska, the Southwest, and New Zealand with no problems.  I can import maps and tracks and export tracks.  I use rechargeable AA batteries (2) and I can get up to three days of hiking with the track feature on.  I know my distance traveled, total elevation gain, etc., and can see where I’ve been (or where I’m going) on the map screen.  It has a decent base map and I’ve purchased the more detailed maps on dvd and/or micro sd card and they are fairly accurate.  I’ve tried doing the same things on my phone which works just fine except I can only get one day before the battery is dead if I’m tracking my route.

I ended up taking Gaia on a short walk yesterday (only 2 miles). Absolutely awesome tool… loving being able to track all of this information and have it automatically plotted and easily exported. I’m in Zion currently so I’m going to take it up to Observation Point to give it a longer test. Thanks everyone for the responses.

I have a Garmin Fenix watch and it has all of the features you mentioned plus a bunch more and I haven’t had any issues with software crashes.  I mostly use mine to record trail runs so I can analyze my performance later, but you can use it for navigation if you choose. It exports easily and it has the best battery life of the major brands.  You can easily get 3 days out of it, but I don’t think any electronic device will give you 9 days of GPS without a recharge.

In addition to route, it records speed, pace, cadence, heart rate, elevation, temperature and probably a bunch of other stuff I don’t know about. It has modes for running, hiking, swimming, cycling and skiing (it can tell the difference between going downhill and riding the lift up and records top speed and total vertical on each run, which is fun for bragging rights.)

I figure I’m wearing a watch anyway, whereas I’m definitely not carrying a stand alone GPS and frequently not a phone either, so it might as well have some useful features. But I still always carry a map and compass.

Map, compass, pencil. I also like to supplement with an altimeter.

+1 for GAIA.  You already have your phone with you for photos I would assume.  For extra battery life you can just bring a recharging battery which some of the lighter ones are only 4oz and will give you 1-2 full charges usually.

Excellent app and website.

Wandering around the European Alps on marked tracks, we found an altimter as useful as a compass.

Cheers

Another factor to consider is initial cost of device as well as replacement cost.  My Garmin GPS was $180 on eBay;  if I lose it or it gets damaged from water, a fall, whatever, I’m out $180.  And, as I pointed out earlier, two AA rechargeable batteries can last up to three days.  Also, you can buy area specific map cards for it.  When we went to NZ, I installed the Garmin NZ map card and most of the trails, etc., were on the map.  Another time, I was trying to follow a trail in the Superstition Mountains in AZ and the trail literally disappeared after a bit.  Fortunately, it showed up on my GPS map.   And, I always carry map and compass.

The Garmin Fenix, for example, is $700.  And how much is an iPhone these days?

Gaia GPS is awesome. The tracking is fairly useless on anything other than a day hike due to battery drain but you don’t really need it. Whenever I do “big” trips I plot my route out via the website first. This gives me an easier way to calculate mileage and, particularly, elevation gain than a map. If you are following established trails plotting your route is really easy – if you pick two spots along a trail the route will ‘snap’ to the trail. They have drastically improved this feature over the last year. I generally put waypoints along my route with the total my miles, elevation gain and loss. I rarely actually use the GPS (relying instead on the specs for my obvious waypoints) but it can be handy on unvarying terrain or if you think you may be off course. If you are using it off trail (like the WRHR) it is more time consuming to plot the route (you have nothing to snap to) and you should plan on adding 20% to the mileage to account for working around obstacles and other micro route finding.

I also recommend Maplets which doesn’t have many bells and whistles but is awesome if you are somewhere with supported maps. It basically takes public trail maps (like the one they hand out at the entrance to Zion) and pinpoints your location on it. It is a really handy tool, though not well suited for anything too serious.

“The Garmin Fenix, for example, is $700.”

You can get a Fenix 2 (which is what I have) for $149 certified refurbished, or $199 brand new and a Fenix 3 is $450 new.  Only the Fenix 5 is $600 to $700.  There is no way I would pay that.

Has anyone mentioned iHikeGPS, a low cost, pretty good app for iPhone?

My son and I have used for a couple of years now in mountains and canyons. It does the job well. It used to be $4 – it’s $10 now. But that’s it. No subscription, in-app purchases or trick ‘lite’ app front to get you snared in.

The USGS maps it downloads are very small files, just enough so they are not annoyingly rastered, but this also means I can store hundreds of quads without too much drain on expensive Apple storage.

I have never used Gaia, but I suspect it’s a more featured app than iHike.

GAIA with tracking turned on 12 hours eats about %55 iPhone battery per day; without tracking I can get 5 to 6 days. Through GPS, whether the iPhone Compass app or GAIA, the altitude info the iPhone delivers is also amazingly good.