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ki0eh 
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Feb. 12 2012, 5:29 pm |
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I got an iPhone recently, and I've also been trying to think of how to improve my TR's. Despite the poor online reviews, today for the couple of hours I had available this weekend (that I decided not to spend on the ArcGIS computer, I'll get back to that in a couple of days I think...) I downloaded the Backpacker GPS Trails PRO app and hit the trail.
Link if this works
A few things I noticed about this report:
-It tripled my distance (roughly), and the profile looks weird.
-I must inadvertently have hit the pause button partway through the hike and only noticed two trail junctions later, so there is a missing part of the track. Maybe that's what confused the stats.
-The only other hiker I saw was a dog walker. That may be the chief use of this SGL tract, amid exurban homes with no view from the summit.
-The trails are unblazed, I took a couple of pictures along them to show the treadway.
-I roadwalked not just back around to the car but over to the nearby Middletown watershed for some added length and interest.
-Although I do pick up trash along trails when out by myself, a 55 gallon drum with closed ends and bungs, floated onto the trail by TS Lee's high water, isn't something I'm going to mess with.
-I was sorely tempted to cross an un-posted cornfield along the PA Turnpike to return to the car, but since I would have stumbled into the back of a McMansion, I'm glad I didn't take the short cut.
-The app reviews indicated this was a battery hog, this hike is all of 5 minutes' drive away from my home charger and after two (not six!) hours in continuous 3G coverage the iPhone battery was down to 50%. Probably not the best choice for documenting the backcountry.
-I couldn't use my main backpacker.com identity, there was a vague note in the documentation that some accounts are too old.
All in all I'm not sure this app improves my TR's - although walking around with just one device, instead of trying to fumble a couple, might be on the right track. Would welcome any suggestions.
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| Post Number: 2
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Feb. 24 2012, 11:07 am |
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Tried this app again at Musser Gap in Rothrock SF (yes it is in Rothrock SF, they bought this land about 5 years ago for a supposed supplemental trailhead to Shingletown Gap, although not much apparently has happened since) yesterday, got a little better results. (No pictures and didn't reach the MST, too dark.)
One weird thing about the elevation profile in this app is that it gives elevation on y axis but TIME (not distance) on the x axis in the web report.
Also to those people who really believe the GPS reported elevation, note that I turned on and off the iPhone at the same point on the truck bed, the net elevation change of 17 feet is thereby bogus. 
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| Post Number: 3
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2012, 10:13 pm |
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Tried it once more: at supposedly PA's largest roadless gap, north side of Little Juniata River's passage through Tussey Mountain. MST North of Little Juniata
It was my first time to this locale where Tom Thwaites awarded a rare exclamation point (i.e. "View!") on the old black and white maps. The way up was more interesting than the usual MST climb of Tussey Mountain, as it ascended a spur ridge to dinkey grades and an incline besides the usual rock garden on top.
The route didn't get paused this time but for some reason it tripled my distance again. I wonder if the people who usedta couldn't maintain this here forum got promoted to iPhone app development for Backpacker.
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| Post Number: 4
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hikingFF77
Group: Members
Posts: 5237
Joined: Aug. 2005
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Posted on: Apr. 23 2012, 11:35 am |
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I don't even have a clue what you're talking about, the only apps I have are computer based, I don't use anything else.
You didn't get lost so something worked... haha
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“I’m just hanging on while this world keeps spinning and it’s good to know it’s out of my control. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this living is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go…”
Jimmy Buffett & Martina McGraw
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| Post Number: 5
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: May 22 2012, 11:09 am |
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I did two leg-stretcher hikes yesterday morning while going point to point on business travel, and also a hike last Friday in between too.
Hike 1 at McConnells Mill State Park ensured that I walked all the NCT in the park, not just the long section that GaliWalker takes lots of great pictures of, but also the short section trail-east compass-north of Eckert Bridge. I circled back to Alpha Pass (why that name, btw?) using the Kildoo Trail, the 100 or so steps from the mill and the hard road. This time the app seems to have doubled rather than tripled my distance.
Given my ticked-off-ness at the Backpacker app I also downloaded the Columbia app. I wasn't bold enough to try to run both of them at the same time so I used it on other hikes.
Hike 0 was a variation of the Fayetteville Kaymoor Loop in New River Gorge from MRHyker's site. It shows up correctly on the iPhone but after uploading it doesn't show up at all in Safari, and the map on IE is a crabbed vastly simplified polygon and not the actual route. Also the geographic tag on the route is where I first fired up the app at home (eastern PA) and not where I first started recording (southern WV) which is not a good thing.
Hike 2 was a quick jaunt in the frontcountry of Moraine State Park, close to but quite different from McConnells Mill. I must have pocket paused the track as the iPhone only shows from the parking lot to where I turned on the bike trail. The link on IE shows only a quadrilateral polygon.
Any other recommendations out there for similar apps? Both of these clearly still have major issues.
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| Post Number: 6
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GaliWalker
Group: Members
Posts: 584
Joined: Feb. 2010
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Posted on: May 22 2012, 8:04 pm |
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I still haven't done your Hike-1 this year in one shot, which is a favorite destination of mine, since it's so close to home. Good reminder that I need to get myself in there again to do the whole thing. 
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'Gali'Walker => 'Mountain-pass' walker
Photos: http://galiwalker.zenfolio.com
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| Post Number: 7
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Aug. 12 2012, 9:00 pm |
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I noticed the Backpacker GPS Trails Pro app got updated so I thought I would try it again.
Link to Butler Knob hike
The route is a very recently relocated (not on the Internet map yet) portion of Standing Stone Trail, passing a new shelter and newly passing the actual view from Butler Knob. We continued on an in-and-out to the Hall of the Mountain King and the Throne Room (possibly PA's best vista, on any trail in the entire state) since my wife had never seen it. Crowds stay away as it's in a remote area made even more so by what might be the roughest road to a trailhead in PA. It's a good thing we didn't rely on the iPhone GPS directions to get there, they wanted me to drive straight up the side of the mountain on an imaginary route to the coordinates.
The position went a little bit cuckoo while we were looking at the new shelter area, but otherwise the app distance and profile look much more reasonable than my previous tries at iPhone trip reporting.
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| Post Number: 8
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AegisIII
Group: Members
Posts: 510
Joined: Jan. 2010
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Posted on: Aug. 13 2012, 9:36 pm |
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I've not downloaded the track yet, but this one looks significantly better than must phone-derived GPS data, which seem to be much more noisy.
Is photo 18 taken from what the guidebook calls the King's Chamber? We missed that, right?
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EJS
(Ed. S)
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| Post Number: 9
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| Post Number: 10
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Jan. 20 2013, 8:36 pm |
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Double header today. Yesterday, with backpacking trip cancelled I wound up trying to go through the mess in the family room in partial preparation for my daughter's birthday party. Considering that's the room with 6 file drawers of hiking maps and 6 feet of shelf space occupied by hiking guides, the sun was beckoning a bit much to also stay in Sunday.
On the shelf was "60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Harrisburg" so I started thumbing through that in search of places I hadn't been. Susquehannock State Park in far southern Lancaster County (definitely nowhere near Susquehannock Trail) appeared as the largest venue in that book where I had not been. Having driven along the Lancaster County side of the Susquehanna River many times before, I programmed the trailhead GPS coordinates into Google Maps on the iPhone and set off.
When I got to those coordinates somewhat over an hour later (Lancaster County is larger than some folks give it credit for), I found I hadn't actually brought the book but the State Park entrance kiosk was well supplied with maps (PA State Park maps are oh so much better now than they were 10 years ago).
I started the Backpacker GPS Pro application and results are here.
This ever updating app has appeared to make some of the links earlier in this thread inoperable, but for the moment they are all available here I think, the maps app never did recognize this particular backpacker.com identity so I am "ki0eh2"
Aiming easterly on the Pipe Line Trail, the map said it started at a picnic pavilion, I looked out from the picnic pavilion for a while until spying what might be a pipeline cut in the trees, on the far side of a septic sand mound. After going around the septic system I found a routed post and off I went. This dug trail with minor horse poop ended at the eastern park boundary so I circled right on what I took to be an old firewood lane in the back forty. It descended into a side hollow where there was a constructed spring enclosure, then climbed back up to the brow of the main hollow (the bottom of which is outside the park). So far a pleasant enough walk through reverted farmland, a bit reminiscent of much of Finger Lakes Trail. Gradually the river became visible through the trees. I crossed over one point that didn't have a non-winter view through mature trees, then kept going to another parking area. (Interestlngly, the "60 Hikes" book starts its circuit description from this parking lot, not the one at the GPS coordinates.) Quickly the main drive-up overlook came into view, offering a wide sweep over Conowingo reservoir, the short rocky river and the Norman Wood Bridge with Holtwood Dam behind.
Edging around the grass area trying to find the next alleged trail I saw some fairly large holly trees along the edge. I found the Overlook Trail marked by a post and continued on the wooded brow, passing 2 trail junctions before coming to a 3rd at the Wissler Run overlook. This second slot view looked straight up the east shore of the river, revealing the base of the Muddy Run pumped storage facility in all its glory.
The park map showed that I would have to retrace the Overlook Trail to the Fire Trail to reach the Rhododendron Trail, but instead I saw an obvious dug constructed trail to the left after turning my back on the overlook. So I took it, it appeared and soon proved that it would go more directly to the bottom of Wissler Run. In fact it went there so directly that someone had providentially left grab a hold rhododendron in place running down the fall line of the slope. The trail ended at the top of about a 4' landscape tie retaining wall so I jumped down to the Rhododendron Trail.
Shortly another unblazed trail headed left, the park map showed this continuing to a parking area at the pump storage facility, so why not try it? Near the bottom the trail passed some old foundations then came out at a gas valve set above a place where two pipeline aerial crossings went over Wissler Run. Instead the trail appeared to continue over the run at the outer edge of railroad ballast over a culvert so I emerged at the mouth of a tunnel entrance to the pumped storage facility. The park map showed the trail continuing so I did as far as the edge of the parking lot. A pickup truck load of folks showed up at this point and disgorged on the river bank, I wound up going back through the tunnel and up the trail.
The Wissler Run Park of Exelon has a sign coming from River Road just south of PA 372, and actually is far easier to reach from most of the world than the State Park parking lot, with a better maintained road in to boot. The one problem with starting here is that the trail I took down, is less obvious going up as you have to pass a warning sign for the gas valve set and then the fenced enclosure for the gas valves without hint of any blazes, before you reach the stone surfaced dug sidehill trail.
After this brief excursion into heavy industry and back on Rhododendron Trail, I climbed quickly away from Wissler Run almost to the brow, then after a brief traverse headed back all the way down into a much wilder tableau, among the sharp shiny-flecked boulders familiar to hikers in other Susquehanna River Gorge venues, with encroaching rhodies along the stream. Reaching a 4-way trail junction, I continued on Rhododendron Trail as it got wider and more accommodating of multi-users. It passed another constructed spring and the foundation of a pioneer home (of a Revolutionary War veteran, according to the blurb on the park map), then reached old wagon-road width as it passed another junction or two then emerged at a disused stone structure labeled "Landis House", which turned out to be right next to the parking lot.
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| Post Number: 11
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Jan. 20 2013, 8:53 pm |
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Today's other hike was at Tucquan Glen, clearly a more popular venue than the State Park. Much of this trail is an abandoned eroded road, with bypass trails around where the road either forded the creek or was decimated by it. (Kind of like the bottom of Ramsey's Draft in this respect.)
My trace is here.
Even though I forgot the "60 Hikes" book it turned out when I returned to pick it up off the family room floor, that I had done the exact hike described. I had thought I had only been on the Conestoga Trail through here, but the south side trail seemed very familiar to me so perhaps I did it before on a group Conestoga Trail section hike.
The "60 Hikes" book said the trail started at a wooden footbridge over a branch of Tucquan Run, actually it seems there may have been a change of heart of an adjacent property owner and/or a flood, as the new blue blazes ford the stream (it might be easier in high summer, but I came very close to boot drench here).
Also, the loop trail on the north side is now yellow blazed, not blue. The trailhead kiosk map alleged there was also a white trail further up the north side, but I didn't take it.
Personally if I were to come back with the kid I would run the loop in reverse direction. The south side trail near the river is the scenic highlight with bouldery cascades, and I like looking upstream instead of continually turning.
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| Post Number: 12
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MRHyker
Group: Members
Posts: 3553
Joined: Dec. 2005
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Posted on: Jan. 21 2013, 3:44 pm |
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Tucquan is one of the prettiest areas in the Holtwood area IMO with Pecquan Creek, Otter Creek, Mill Run and Oakland Run being nice places to visit on a summer day.
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"Red is the color of the sun with my eyes closed." - Dave Matthews
Midatlantichikes.com
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| Post Number: 13
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ki0eh
Group: Members
Posts: 2421
Joined: Mar. 2005
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Posted on: Apr. 29 2013, 8:15 pm |
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After a couple of updates I'm back to trying the Backpacker GPS Trails Pro app
If this works it will show a circuit hike at Pipestem SP, WV
It appears that the app finally worked at a profile with meaningful distance, photos, etc. (That probably means it will shut down next week.)
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