Windy Tops

Tag: altimeter

  • GPSs and Cognitive Mapping, or lack of it

    Late in 2010, I expressed some concerns about uses and perceptions of GPS receivers and similar technology. This article published in the New York Times (copied verbatim here if the NYT tries to force you to subscribe) refers to some of the concerns I share with risks relating GPS use. It’d be silly not to agree how fantastically useful it is to be able to pinpoint one’s position, especially in situations where safety demands it. On the other hand, it’s easy to get into habits of GPS use which don’t merely reduce one’s awareness in an immediate situation, but might also hinder those mental skills from being exercised or developing.

    A point made in the article is that the more traditional use of a map, which in a back-country context would sometimes be augmented by tools such as compasses and altimeters, requires a person to repeatedly refer to the surrounding physical world. It exercises parts of the brain responsible for generating cognitive maps of the surrounding area. Once a person begins to rely more on a GPS, these skills and abilities are lost, and spatial abilities degrade.
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  • Media Impressions of a Tararua Rescue

    Sunday (a week ago, 11th July) saw what was probably a routine rescue mission in the southern Tararuas. A man (31) and a woman (27) from Wellington were somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Hut and unexpectedly walking through deep snow. The Sun began to set, and their GPS batteries died. It seems they were lucky to be in a place where their phone worked, because they texted their last known position to friends to say they were scared for their safety, and were heading for Alpha Hut. The weather was very clear and calm, not expected to deteriorate any time soon. A helicopter crew spotted their torch light at about 6.30pm on Sunday night, using night vision goggles, and collected them.

    In some ways this rescue wasn’t very interesting. It barely made the news at all. It was reported very briefly in the DomPost, not even giving an approximate location, but reporting the GPS failure. A press release from the Life Flight Trust (duplicated here) adds a few more details, but wasn’t picked up and analysed by any popular media outlets that I can find. Also being a press release from the helicopter operator, its main focus is that they rescued people with their helicopter rather than explaining why those people needed rescuing.
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  • My new GPS and digital red-lining

    I’ve spent the last few weeks playing with GPS receivers, initially with Craig‘s old one and very basic Garmin eTrex which he loaned me. (Thanks Craig!) A basic eTrex was certainly nothing flash at all. Having only a low-sensitivity antennae, it barely works when there’s a tree on the horizon let alone being under bush cover. This aside, it was great having something to play with to simply get an initial idea of all the basic GPS terms and ideas. A little over three weeks ago, I finally bought my own more sophisticated Garmin eTrex Vista HCx. This new extension to my tramping hobby has also manifested itself on this blog, which is why several of the trips now have Download GPX and Load map links. (The former downloads a GPs eXchange Format file, and the latter opens a Google Maps box with the described route overlaid.) I’m hoping to keep this up in the future, and I suppose time will tell how it works out.

    It’s been a surprisingly difficult decision for me to get a GPS receiver, and not strictly because of the cost. I’ve been putting it off because I’ve really wanted to get a good feeling of how to navigate without one, and I’ve not wanted to have the temptation lying around that would encourage bad habits of using a GPS without understanding the surrounding land. I definitely think that understanding maps, compasses and (sometimes) altimeters is the way to go, perhaps with a GPS to fall back on when things get unexpectedly bad or chaotic. I certainly don’t ever want to get myself into a situation where I go out relying primarily on an electronic device that runs on batteries. There’s a stigma in some tramping circles that’s attached to openly carrying a GPS receiver. To some extent I do even agree with the origins of this stigma, I think, though mostly because there do seem to be some people out there who really are relying primarily on a GPS to get them through a tricky situation without necessarily having the more fundamental navigation expertise and experience to back it up. I suspect it’s asking for trouble, which is why I’m hoping I don’t fall into the trap myself.
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  • Outdoor First Aid was fun

    Last weekend I hopped onto a first aid course being run by the Mountain Safety Council, which I thoroughly recommend. Thanks to Bridget and Richard who ran the thing, as well as everyone else who would have been involved behind the scenes. Among other things, I reinforced my belief that I’m not a very good actor. My worst effort was when I was supposed to be playing a person with a broken leg. When asked about my age, I somehow accidentally pulled age 14 out of nowhere, momentarily forgetting that another aspect of my character was that he was supposed to be suffering from angina. Overall it was a good weekend, though. There was a lot to it and I’ll really only learn things properly with experience, but I’m hoping I’ve picked up some good ways to structure my thoughts rather than panic if and when bad things happen. (Acronyms like DRABCS, SAMPLE and WRAPT are good ones to remember.)

    In other news, I finally busted my relatively cheap altimeter a couple of weeks ago (during the Renata trip), which isn’t entirely unexpected given I haven’t been going to great lengths to look after it. That particular one was a bit unreliable on occasions in any case, including when compared with other altimeters on the same trips, and more of an interesting toy and something to practice with rather than something I’d want to rely on for an accurate reading. Now I finally have a good excuse to go shopping for something worthwhile.

    Anyway, we’re off to the Ruahine Range this weekend, to make another attempt at getting from Rangiwahia over to Sawtooth, and back around via Pourangaki. We first attempted this about 6 weeks ago in March, but it just rained and rained and a couple of things unfortunately went wrong.

  • altimeterwatches.com makes me famous

    It’s amusing where things you’ve written turn up from time to time, especially when you mention altimeters a lot. These guys over at altimeterwatches.com seem to have three of my recent postings linked from their front page, apparently because they mention an altimeter or altimeters or something along those lines.

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  • Trip: Cone, Alpha, Quoin, Eastern Hutt

    Going tramping on a trip organised by Sam is quite a lot of fun. Generally you end up setting something on fire.

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    Sam collecting water
    on Bull Mound

    This weekend we went for a trip into one of Wellington’s two main water catchment areas. For some confusing reason, the Tararuas were in the middle of experiencing several very fine days in a row, which perhaps makes the trip quite rare.

    Dates: 16th-18th November, 2007
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Walls Whare Road-End.
    People: Sam, Marie, Eddie, Lee (a friend of Sam’s visiting from the Otago Uni Tramping Club), and me.
    Huts visited: Cone Hut (0 nights), Alpha Hut (1 night), Eastern Hutt Hut (0 nights).
    Intended route: Begin at Walls Whare, walk via Cone Hut up to Alpha, continue along Quoin Ridge down the spur, and out via Pakuratahi Forks.
    Actual route: Similar until Quoin Ridge, at which point we split up. Marie and Lee continued down the ridge and ended up drowning (accidentally) in the Western Hutt River. The rest of us followed a spur to the Eastern Hutt River.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • Hooray! I’m not a nutcase.

    Excellent; It turns out I haven’t lost my mind. On this trip over High Ridge, back in March, we found that one of the signs in Powell Hut had an incorrect phone number for the nearby DOC ranger. In fact, the number didn’t even have enough digits. I exchanged some emails with someone in a DOC office shortly after that trip, who eventually decided I must have been remembering things wrong, because the sign could only have been an orientation map, and the PDF of that map which he had in front of him did indeed have the correct number. Basically I was told outright that people scribble all kinds of crazy things in huts and that this wasn’t a DOC sign, and I shouldn’t take too much notice of it.

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    Well, a few weeks ago, Amelia went past Powell Hut and took a photo for me that proves that I’m not a complete nut-case, or at the very least is consistent with that theory. Eight months later, it looks as if someone’s crossed out the number and written the correct one, but that doesn’t really bother me. (Thanks Amelia.)

    In other news, I joined an informal WTMC group this evening, walking up the Tip Track to the Radar Dome in Te Kopahou Reserve. Bronwyn, Marie and I all compared our identical $40 altimeters. They did quite well staying consistent with each other, whatever that means.

  • Daywalk: Orongorongo, McKerrow, Clay Ridge

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    Near the start of the
    Orongorongo Track.

    Today’s walk was around the Rimutakas, once again centred on Catchpool Valley.

    Date: 11th November, 2007
    Location: Rimutaka Forest Park
    People: Annemarie, Stijn, David, Andrew, and me.
    [Photos]

    This is a fairly standard circuit from the Catchpool Valley road-end. It’s a matter of walking along the Orongorongo Track, almost to the Orongorongo River, but then turning off to the left up the McKerrow Track. The intersection with the Clay Ridge track is a couple of minutes before the peak of Mount McKerrow, and from there it’s a walk down the Clay Ridge track back to the parking area.

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • Trip: Paua Hut (and juggling)

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    Approaching a dodgier part
    of Browns’ Track.

    This weekend, Stacey and I joined a short (easy-rated) WTMC weekend walk to Paua Hut and back. Many people on the trip had a higher than average interest in juggling, which meant that this trip doubled as a juggling trip, whatever that amounts to.

    Dates: 3rd – 4th November, 2007
    Location: Rimutaka Forest Park
    Huts visited: Paua Hut (1 night).
    People: Bronwyn, Stacey, Sally, Danielle, Danniel, Chris, Andy, Harry, Geraldine, Gail, Deborah, and me.
    [Photos]

    I think the basic plan was to walk for a few hours towards Paua Hut, learn to juggle, and walk back again.

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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