GPS Coordinate Sources

Now that I am the proud owner of a GPS, I was hoping someone could point me to a good source for coordinates in the Whites. Top points for the coordinates to the Brutus Bushwhack on Owl's Head.

Thanks

Tuck

Any decent topo map will include a lat/long grid, and the online ones will let you get exact coordinates with a mouse click or hover. Try caltopo.com for example.


For unmapped waypoints like the Brutus bushwhack, Google for the name of the route plus "GPX" (the most common file format for exchanging GPS tracks)

Just ask. So many people record tracks and are willing to share them that you are almost guaranteed to get one.

How honest it is to use someone else's track on a bushwhack is an issue for others to debate

Mohamed Ellozy said:

Just ask. So many people record tracks and are willing to share them that you are almost guaranteed to get one.

How honest it is to use someone else's track on a bushwhack is an issue for others to debate

Click to expand...

Tuck, lest this statement about honesty bother you, keep in mind that while a half dozen on this site might debate the question, there will be "fifty" people out there hiking who will be following the tracks in the snow of a bushwhack such as Blackpond, Brutus and Engine Hill that others have laid down and getting their winter patches and no one will question it. Many fewer people will be using the GPS tracks shared by others, but I think the same principle applies. As someone mentioned recently in another thread, it's just easier to get the winter patch than it used to be. Hikers used to have to climb mountains with the old wood frame snow shoes, there's just no comparison anymore.

Tuck,

Look to this thread for GPX for WMNF trails: http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?38643-WMNF-GIS-trails-data-GPX/page3

peakbagger.com is a good source for routes and tracks. Here's Owl's Head: http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=6912

wikiloc has a lot of tracks. Here's a few for the Brutus: http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/find.do?q=brutus+bushwhack

Bob

Excellent start for me! Thanks All

Tuck

Mohamed Ellozy said:

Just ask. So many people record tracks and are willing to share them that you are almost guaranteed to get one.

How honest it is to use someone else's track on a bushwhack is an issue for others to debate

Click to expand...

What does honesty have to do with anything?? Guy's looking for the route so he can safely get up and down Owl's Head without incident. I don't think he's rushing to the local NH papers to claim credit for the first ever recorded ascent of Owl's Head. It kills me sometimes how freakin' serious people get on this page over the dumbest stuff. We can't all be superhero, wizard mountaineers. Some of us just like hiking and getting out of the woods in one piece.

Tuck: I did the blackpond/brutus whack as an overnight last March my track is on wikiloc at:
http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/spatialArtifacts.do?event=setCurrentSpatialArtifact&id=6294754
My trip report is at http://1slowhiker.blogspot.com/2014_03_08_archive.html I suspect the whack changes a bit year to year but this will give you the key waypoints.

Two things:

1) I use wikiloc or peakbagger for my track logs. However; I will say, don't blindly follow the track logs. When we did Owls Head a few weeks ago, I had two different logs for Black Pond and Brutus, and by the time I got back to the car, I had a 3rd track which was the one that we had hiked (following a mostly broken trail). The woods are so open throughout the the schwacks that I could see them varying drastically snowstorm-to-snowstorm.
1a) Wikiloc's search isn't great, but googles is, try searching for "owls head site:wikiloc.com"
2) Not sure if your GPS came with the maps or not, but for Garmin (60 CSx) you can actually get free GPS map tiles from here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/search/editorschoice/ I specifically use the "northeast topo" because it gets the best overall coverage.

DayTrip said:

What does honesty have to do with anything?? Guy's looking for the route so he can safely get up and down Owl's Head without incident. I don't think he's rushing to the local NH papers to claim credit for the first ever recorded ascent of Owl's Head. It kills me sometimes how freakin' serious people get on this page over the dumbest stuff. We can't all be superhero, wizard mountaineers. Some of us just like hiking and getting out of the woods in one piece.

Click to expand...

Well said!

Tuck

A word of caution on using GPS while hiking:

Be careful not to walk into trees or step off cliffs when your attention is focused on the little screen.