GPS and Coordinates Used

With the increase in use of handheld GPS (Global Positioning System) units over the past decade, the outdoors has finally been tamed. Well, not really, but GPS has made it much safer and more accessible than ever before.

Trail directions are no longer ambiguous. Gone are the directions like, “take a left at the strange looking boulder.” With a GPS unit, outdoor enthusiasts can plot exact locations of trails, points of interest and significant intersections. And then share these waypoints with others. This has opened up hundreds of previously difficult to find and navigate trail to anyone with a GPS.

Can you still get lost? Sure. But usually not for long. It can be difficult to document complex intersections and I’ve taken the wrong road for almost a mile before realizing my mistake. The great thing about GPS units is that you should always be able to get back to your starting point (given you input the waypoint into your GPS).

I have found my Magellan (Garmin’s are great too) to be probably the best $200 piece of equipment I’ve ever spent for exploring the outdoors. If you don’t have a GPS unit that has the ability to use topo maps, get one. Now. You’ll probably be kicking yourself that you didn’t do it sooner.

I use my GPS unit and computer topo software to preplan trips. I can take GPS coordinates from books or websites and enter them into my topo software. Then I plot my desired route. Then I look for other possible points of interest, roads, natural features that are near my route and input those waypoints. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found interesting places by doing this.

My GPS comes with my on all my new adventures where I follow the waypoints I’ve placed along the route. This way I don’t have to worry about taking wrong turns and ensure I’m going where I planned to go. If I want to find my way back to the starting point, all I have to do is follow the waypoints like breadcrumbs.

If I do find other interesting points that I haven’t already plotted, I create a waypoint on the fly. Examples of this have been awesome camping spots, waterfalls, caves, and ruins. When I get home, I document the trail and the new waypoints. That way, I can always find them again. And I can share these with others.

It is my intent to use WGS84 coordinates whenever possible. Some of the sources referenced do not specify units used. Therefore, there might be some mixing of coordinate systems within these blogs. That’s the bad news. The good news: For most 4WD, hiking and biking uses, you can mix WGS84 and NAD27 coordinate systems without any problems. What I’ve noticed is that these are off by a few hundred yards at most. You will still find you’re able to negotiate the turns and find points of interest shown without any difficulties.

Where a variation in coordinate systems can make a BIG difference is if you are Geocaching (trying to find a small cache of goodies) where errors of thirty feet can take you from success to failure. For most of our purposes, it doesn’t matter if you enter NAD27 coordinates while your GPS is set to WGS84.

Have fun and be safe!

Arizona Adventurer