I spent $180 on a GPS device and it almost got me lost in the Sierras

Everyone talks about how you need a Garmin inReach for remote routes but I had the opposite experience. Used mine on the Rae Lakes Loop last fall off the 60 Lakes Trail junction and it kept putting me on trails that just ended at cliffs. My old paper map had the actual route marked clear as day. Had to backtrack twice by an extra mile each time. Anyone else find that the fancier tech actually makes things worse on certain trails?

2 comments

2 Comments

mark_mitchell3d ago

My buddy had a similar thing happen on the JMT last year with his fancy watch. It kept trying to route us through a meadow that turned into a swamp after some rain. We ended up just following the cairns and forgot about the screen for the rest of the trip.

robinson.hannah3d ago

Hmm I gotta push back on that a little @mark_mitchell. Those watches use GPS data from satellites and trail databases that get updated all the time. If your buddy's watch was routing through a swamp, maybe it was actually showing a newer trail that was cut to avoid something else. Cairns can be wrong too, they get moved by hikers or washed out in storms. I've had times where following a cairn took me down a dead end because someone just stacked rocks for fun. The watch is just a tool, but it's based on mapping data that's way more precise than a pile of rocks on a mountain.