For most people, knowing where you are all the time is the invaluable when heading outside. You can see where you are going the all the time, and, maybe more importantly, you can see how to get home.

OnX started as a hunting app, initially to see land ownership, and then adding many other features for backcountry users as well.

How does it work? How does it stack up against the other GPS apps out there. We dug through it and tested it hiking to see.

(We’ve also got reviews up here on Outdooractive and Gaia GPS apps.)

Mobile App

There are 2 interfaces you can use the app. Mobile or on the desktop. It’s nice to be able to use both.

With both you can use one for out in the field on a small tablet or your phone. And then on the computer you can plan with bigger screens.

Getting around

The interface of OnX is simple and easy to use. Without consulting any manuals, I could browse the map, take layers offline and create/view tracks.

Scrolling with one finger or pinching and zooming are the main ways to get around the map.

Spinning with 2 fingers spins the map. Tapping the compass spins it back north up. I like always north up and there’s a setting to lock it.

The menu along the bottom gets you into the main functions

• Discover – List and filter nearby user-generated trails
• Offline Maps – Pick map areas to download offline
• My Content – Saved tracks and waypoints
• Tools – Create tracks and add waypoints
• Tracker – Create a GPS track of your adventure

The magnifying glass takes you into the search. It will search for anything named on the map like a town, mountain, or river.

When scrolling around in the app, you can click on a trail and see nearby user-generated trails and weather in the area.

Tracking

It’s easy to create a track. The Tracker is one of the options at the bottom of the main screen. Tapping that gives you a big green button to start tracking. Very simple.

You can slide the tracking popup out of the way while you’re not using it to save screen real estate.

If you’re stopped for lunch or a break, you can click pause or stop. When you’re done hit stop and give your track a name and save. Track details show total time, distance, speed, elevation gain and loss.

Creating Route

You can also build your own route with the tools in the app. If there are already tracks, trails, or roads in the map layers, then the app can make a route for you. Click Build Route, select a start point and an end point and the app will create a route following whatever trails are in the map layers.

I’m not quite sure how exactly they route through the trails if there is a network. It seems to be shortest to the destination. So keep in mind some short sections might actually be the steeper than the longer routes.

Creating a track to follow, it’s easy to create a track by tapping at the start and tapping at the destination. The app will create a track that automatically follows the trails in the map layer.

There’s no way to edit the created track to make small adjustments but you can tape along the sections you want to make it more custom.

There is also a point draw tool option where you can tap anywhere on the map and aren’t restricted to trails already in the map layers. This is good for when routes can be bushwhacked or there’s nothing on the map already to follow.

Under the tools section, you can make your own route with the drawing tools.

Line Distance gives you the distance between two points.

Area Shape is drawing a shape on the map and then getting the area of inside it.

Add Photo and Waypoints saves a point to the map.

Mark My Location adds a point to the map at your current location.

Following a route

To follow a track, line up the little blue circle with your location and keep it on the line of the track.

There isn’t a way to ‘follow’ or ‘start’ a route like on Garmin GPS. When following a route, it will show that route highlighted and give you stats like distance covered or time and distance to destination. This is helpful when need to know how far you have gone or need to go.

Importing a track

I have a ton of gpx and kml tracks that I’ve made over the years in different apps like Garmin Basecamp, CalTopo and Google Earth. For me a good app will be able to import these so you can use them off into the future.

In My Content, there’s an Import button. From there you can pick files from your device. OnX can import GPX and KML files under 4mb.

Exporting a track

Exporting tracks and routes is easy.

1. Click on the track or route
2. Click export in the details popup
3. Pick a location

If you want to save the files for later you can just pick a folder to export it to on your phone. You can AirDrop, text and email them right from the export screen as well.

The files get exported as a GPX file. I don’t think you can change this format but GPX is a good standard that a lot of GPS apps use. Many apps will convert from GPX to other formats if you need to as well. Google Earth and Garmin Basecamp and Explore can all import GPX files.

I like exporting GPS tracks to a safe place to be backed up in case I lose access to an account or the service shuts down.

Basemaps and Layers

Satellite

OnX has good satellite and aerial imagery for most of the blog. They say it is usually around 4 years old and then update it every few years.

In Layers > Layer Options > Basemap Imagery, you can change from the default High Quality Imagery to Snow Imagery or Recent Imagery. Recent Imagery uses Planet Labs data and they say is updated every 14 days.

Topo

The topo is made by OnX for their maps and is quite detailed. I’m in Canada and it’s often forgotten by app companies but the Canadian maps are quite good.

Hybrid

The Hybrid map is a combination of the Satellite images with topo lines laid over top.

3D Mode

3D allows you too visualize the terrain much better than a 2D map can. I’m not quite sure how it’s made but it seems to be the satellite imagery built into a 3D model using the topographic information. All your tracks and waypoints show on the 3D version as well. It’s not accessible in offline maps but is really nice for planning trips at home.

Other Layers

A bunch of other layers can be enabled in the Backcountry version of the app.

• Trail Slope
• Private Land
• Government Land
• Historic Wildfire
• Air Quality Index
• Active Wildfire
• Wildfire smoke
• Avalanche Forecast
• Avalanche Potential Release Area
• AValanche Runouot
• Avalanche Terrain Expore Scale
• Slope Angle
• Slope Aspect

One note for the Avalanche information. It makes for a great general planning tool but it does not replace proper avalanche training and on the ground review of the conditions.

User Generated Content

OnX acquired the Hiking Project website and app to import all the user generated trails from those sites. This includes the Climb, Bike, Ski, and Run project sites as well. Tracks shared publically on OnX are shown as well. There is less user-generated content on OnX than other apps like AllTrails but it is growing quickly, especially in Canada.

The user-generated content seems to be reviewed so that it’s not random dog walks and 30 loops of the same trail but more refined data.

Offline

Offline maps are very easy to set up. Along the button controls, there is an Offline Maps button.

In there you can see the offline maps you have taken. Click on the downloaded map to see where what’s in it.

To take a new one offline, click New Map. Move around the map and zoom in and out to select the area. Choose the map detail. Less detail will be smaller file size. The only limit to the amount off maps you take offline is the storage on your phone. I like taking a low resolution map for a large area and then a high resolution map for specific areas.

All map layers are downloaded regardless if you have them enabled when online.

Web Map

The same map and data is available in a browser on mac and PC. I like planning with a big screen on a computer and then taking everything offline.

Route, Import and Export on the web view work similar to the app.

Suggestions

The OnX apps are near the best you can get and they are getting better with each update. There are a few things could make them even better.

Landscape mode

I usually run my maps and GPS in landscape mode so I can see more out either side of my location. OnX doesn’t currently support this but it sounds like they are working on it.

3 separate apps

The Hunt, Offroad, and Backcountry (and possibly soon to be Fish) are all separate. Often I’m driving offroad, hiking, and fishing on the same trip so it’d be nice to have everything in the same app.

More User Generated Tracks

More user generated apps will come with time but it’d be nice to get more. I’m not sure what the process is to have them approved and shown on the map but hopefully there will be more soon.

Following a track

A feature I really like on Garmin GPS is being able to pick a track and follow it, getting starts about time and distance to the end of of it. Something like this would be helpful in the apps.

Conclusion

It’s not easy to create an solid app with maps that cover the entire globe from scratch but the team at OnX have done a stellar job.

The app is easy to use and quick to get set up with. I was able to get around the map, view track and make routes without reading any instructions.

They’ve provided great topo and imagery that’s updated regularly. An good app is only half the work. Maps imagery and topo have to be kept up to date for it to be any good.

It surprised me when a landscape view wasn’t available in the latest version but it sounds like it’s coming. Apps can be updated with new code regularly.

For $30 USD/year, the OnX apps are a great deal for what you get and hard to go wrong amid a all the different GPS apps out these days.

The post OnX Backcountry GPS App Review first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Before I had an inReach, I would leave a trip plan with friends and family (still do) and head off and hope nothing would happen. If I wasn’t back, or at least had contacted family by a certain time, they would hopefully call out SAR. Thankfully, it’s never happened but that was the plan.

With satellite technology we can now have 2-way communication anywhere in the world start at $10-15 per month. Spot, Zoleo, Somewear Labs and inReach all have some sort of satellite communication device that costs a fraction of what a satellite phone would, the only option before 2010.

Satellite phones and emergency beacons are still used today and definitely have their place but for ease-of-use, cost and features, communicators like the inReach have taken off with backcountry users, myself included.

Today we’re going to be looking at the Montana 700i GPS from Garmin, a GPS an inReach in one.

The ‘i’ in the name stands for inReach so that’s just built in. The massive screen, included inReach and tons of other features make it a dream for use on road trips, overlanding or any other kind of trip where you don’t mind carrying the beefy 700.

Here’s the quick list of the specs and we’ll dig into the details after.

Montana 700i Specs

• 5” diagonal screen

• MIL-STD 810 for thermal, shock, water and vibration.

• inReach 2-way satellite messaging

• Routable topoactive maps

• included City Navigator maps

• Qwerty keyboard

• Direct to device BirdsEye Satellite Imagery

• ~18 hours battery life in GPS mode, 7+ days in expedition mode

• Usually $699 USD (check the price)

Montana 700i Features

Large touch screen

The 5” touch screen is the literally the biggest feature on the 700. It makes the whole thing quite large. This is great when you’re using trying to see a larger area and where you are in it. It can show a ton of your surroundings and is easy to see. The downside is it’s a bit bigger and heavier than most other GPS.

For overlanding or other times when the GPS is mounted this isn’t a big deal. Many people are mounting tablets or full laptops in their vehicles, this will be a smaller GPS solution. For out in the field hiking the 410 gram (14.4 oz) 700i is certainly heavier than an iPhone or the 241g (8.5 oz) Garmin 66.

5” touch screen shows a lot of map and scrolls quickly

I usually store my GPS is one of the hip belt pockets in my backpack and it just barely fits in the pockets of the Lowepro ProTactic 450 camera backpack I’m using at the moment for most of my day hikes. While it does fit it’s not easy to retrieve so I’ll be getting some sort of case to go on the shoulder straps.

The screen is easy to see in the sun at any brightness and you can adjust the brightness to conserve battery. It works well in light rain but other reviews I’ve seen commented it didn’t work well in heavy rain. There has been a firmware update adding a rain mode to the touch screen which I haven’t tested yet. I’ll add more after trying that out.

inReach satellite messaging

The second big feature of the 700i is the included inReach. inReach is 2-way satellite messenger with SOS capability. With a press of a button, you can message Search and Rescue from anywhere in the world. inReach runs on the Iridium network with 100% global coverage.

The 2-way messaging can text anyone from anywhere in the world. You can type out custom messages with the little keyboard or create pre-canned messages on the website to send. Hiking on Vancouver Island is often out of cell reception and if there’s a problem, even if it’s just being a little late for dinner, you can send a message. Each of the plans have a different number of messages included (Safety plan includes 10) and then there’s a price per message ($.75 in CAD) after that. The full keyboard works well for typing out longer messages. The touch screen if fast and responsive.

The inReach can pull weather reports as well. Basic text weather messages with a 2-day report just cost one message out of your plan but premium weather reports with 7 days are always $1.25 CAD each.

One last thing to keep in mind is the inReach needs a subscription plan to work. You can go on and off the subscription plan by month when you don’t need it but it won’t do anything when it’s not enabled.

inReach SOS button on the side of the Montana

MIL-STD 810

With glass and electronics inside, GPS and phones can be fragile. The 700i is MIL-STD 810 rated for thermal, shock, water and vibration. This is the rating system the US Military uses to test durability and strength. After smashing screens on older GPS before I can attest to the screens being a weak point. This gives me some confidence that the 700i can get through small drops no problem. That said, I highly recommend tethering you GPS to your backpack or handlebars!

It’s also IPX7 rated so it’s ok under 1 meter of water for up 30 minutes. Light rain and accidental drops in puddles aren’t going to bother this GPS.

Weather

The 700i has 2 ways to get weather.

Active Weather can pull weather reports when it’s connected to wifi or a cell phone with a cell connection. This is great at home or if you’re on trails close to reception.

inReach weather can pull basic or premium weather reports through the satellite connection for when you are anywhere else.

Routable topoactive maps

The 700i comes preloaded with Topoactive maps for North America. These are topo maps with relief shading which makes it easier to see what the terrain looks like. Each little bump and hill gets a little shadow behind it so you can easily glance at the map to see the relative height.

They also have routable offroad roads and trails based on the OpenStreetMap open source data. This means that if you see a dirt road or trail on OpenStreetMap then it will likely be included on the topoactive maps to view and route. You can turn routing on and select a point off in the woods and it will tell you which roads and trails to take to get there just like on a road.

This is a very cool feature and hopefully will be using a lot. The routing will depend on how good the trail data is on OpenStreetMap but there are a lot of people adding trails and road data to that platform so hopefully it’s pretty good.

Topoactive maps seems to get updates regularly which you can install through the Garmin Express app. I’m not sure what the delay is with something getting added to OpenStreetMap and then it being added to the Garmin maps but it’s exciting to see a much faster update cycle.

So far I’ve noticed the trails on the maps good but not complete. I always try to have an idea of where I’m going and what the trails look like before going so I don’t to rely completely on the trails on the map. Creating a route in Basecamp or Garmin Earth before to follow is usually your best bet. It’s nice to have a second option though.

BirdsEye satellite imagery

Satellite imagery is a great planning tool for hiking and other adventures but up until recently it was something we could only see on the computer at home. When we went out in the field we had a GPS track and topo maps.

Phone apps have come a long way and many of them offer the ability to take maps offline, some with with satellite imagery. Garmin have their own solution called BirdsEye Satellite Imagery that you can download through Basecamp. It usually requires an annual subscription to use.

Some of the new Garmin GPS can connect directly to your wifi and download the BirdsEye maps to the device to go offline. These are very helpful for finding trails or landmarks that aren’t on your topos yet. From my experience in the Pacific Northwest, we get around on logging roads to access many of the recreation areas and they don’t always show on topo maps, especially if they’re new or have been deactivated. Recent satellite imagery will show big trails, old roads and lakes easily if you have them downloaded before you go.

BirdsEye can only use wifi so you have to download the maps offline before you leave home or kill your data on your cell connection out in the field.

Track Management

Managing tracks is very similar to all the other Garmin devices. You can add new tracks through Garmin Basecamp on a computer or the Garmin Explore app or website. The GPS needs to be wired or paired to the phone or computer to transfer the tracks.

I was disappointed to see that showing more than 1 track on the map is still the same process as older units. There is no way easily show all the tracks on the device on the map at the same time. You have to go through one by one and enable the tracks. If you have an entire network of trails you want to see then it’s going to take a while. This has been a problem for years and I wish Garmin would add something to show a selection of tracks on the map through the device or Basecamp.

Best Prices on the Montana 700i

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Activating inReach

The inReach part of the Montana (and any dedicated inReach or other Garmin GPS with inReach) has to be activated with a subscription plan to be able to do anything with it. The GPS and wifi parts of the unit works fine without any subscription.

In Canada there are 2 options for activating older inReach: Garmin and Roadpost. Roadpost can only activate the older inReach like the Explorer, SE, Explorer+ and SE+. Garmin seems to be able to activate them all. There have slightly different plan prices but if you’ve got a new GPS with inReach built then you can only go with Garmin in Canada.

Other version of the Montana 700 series GPS

I’ve just been testing the 700i but there are 3 different versions of the 700 series.

The 700 without the ‘i’ is just the GPS without the inReach. The 700i is the GPS with the inReach included. The 750i version is the GPS and inReach as well as an 8 megapixel camera. Each of the photos is automatically geotagged with your location. The photo quality isn’t high but if you’re just taking snapshots to remember the location for later, it would work well.

Conclusion

The Garmin Montana 700i GPS with inReach is an excellent crossover GPS for hiking, overlanding and motorcycle use. The big screen shows a lot of ground and is easy to use. The integrated inReach let’s you message for help anytime you need it. It’s on the heavy side so it’s not for the gram counters but if you’re looking for a solid GPS for both vehicle and trail use, definitely check out the 700 series.

The post Garmin Montana 700i GPS Review first appeared on Pack & Trail.

This tutorial applies to Mac version 4.4.6-4.8.11 and Windows version 4.7.3. It will be similar for other versions.

How to send a GPS track to your GPS with Garmin Basecamp

Plug your GPS into your computer with the USB cord. It will show up in Basecamp on the left in the “My Garmin Devices” or “Devices” section.

Find the GPS track that you want to put on your GPS in the “My Collection” folder on the side of the screen. Drag the track from “My Collection” to the GPS. On Mac just drop the track (or tracks) on the GPS name. On Windows drop them into the Internal Storage folder.

The track will still be on your computer but will now be on your GPS as well. Eject your GPS from Basecamp (Right click on your GPS in the menu > Eject) and then turn it on to make sure the GPS track is in your track list on the unit.

One warning. Sometimes it take a couple tries to get it to show up on the GPS. If you don’t see it in the list on your unit, plug it back into he computer and run through the process again. For some reason it might take a couple runs through to stick.

Always double check the track is there before going out!

The post Garmin Basecamp: Send a track to your GPS first appeared on Pack & Trail.

I’ve used some of the best dedicated trail GPS out there and, while there are some pros and cons, phones are just the easiest GPS to use on the trail. They take photos, connect to the internet, upload tracks and images. 

One thing to remember with any phone app is battery life. Using the GPS is very taxing on a battery and you’ll run out of juice much faster than normal. If you are using a phone for your GPS then you better have a battery pack with you to charge or you’ll run into trouble. 

(We’ve also got reviews up here on Outdooractive and OnX GPS apps.

Finding Trails

Finding trails is easy on Gaia GPS. On the website there’s a Hikes page that detects where you are and suggests some hikes. You can just search an area too. 

On your phone in the app, there’s a Discover button bottom centre of the app. It will detect your location or you can put in other locations

Another way to find trails is to use the map. On mobile or desktop, you can just scroll around in the map for any area. Any trail you are interested in, you can click on on the map.

Recording a Trip

Once you’ve found your hike or want to add a new one that’s not on the maps, you can record a track. 

On the map in the mobile app, hit the Record button. That’s it. The app will track where you go on the map and display it there. It can help you get back to your car or just create a GPS track to look at later. 

While you’re recording, you can take a photo in the app which adds it to the track as well. This helps you tell the story of your hike or others see what the hike was like. 

When you are done hiking hit the record button again and choose finish. Here you can enter a new name for the track. You can also add any other photos taken during your hike to the track if they weren’t taken in Gaia.

Organizing Tracks

The best part of Gaia GPS is that it’s so good at organizing tracks. Within the app you can make folders with tracks and photos in it. You can take these folders and put them in other folders. 

For example, I’ve got this folder called Waterfalls. Within the Waterfalls folder is a bunch of other folders for specific water falls. Each waterfall folder has a hiking track in it and sometimes a driving track and photos.

My favourite part of Gaia is being able to see all the items within a folder. If I view my Waterfalls folder then I’ll see every track in all the sub-folders. If I just want to see one waterfall then I can click on that folder. 

Sharing Tracks

Sharing tracks and folders is easy from Gaia. In the mobile app there’s a little Sharing icon you can click. there you can set the privacy on the track and get the sharing link. You can keep tracks private if you don’t want to share them or you want to wait to share them. 

If you want to share from the desktop go to a folder or track page and click the share buttons in the top right. 

Free vs Membership vs Premium

Gaia GPS has a very good free app and there’s options to go to a Membership or Premium levels too. 

The biggest difference between Free and Membership is the offline mode. When you’re going out of cell reception, you can download the maps and still see them on your trip. Make sure you do this before you go!

You can also print maps from the Membership type of account as well. Membership subscriptions are currently $17 USD (usually $20) per year or $60 for 5 years. If you buy your membership through the website and you get a discount.

Premium subscriptions are a step up from Membership for $36 (usually $40) per year or $160 for 5 years.

Premium gets you the full catalog of maps including NatGeo Trails Illustrated. Backroad Mapbooks Canada, US hunting maps and more. This subscription works great if need one of the specific maps. I love the Backroad Mapbooks Canada map and use it a lot for finding trails. For hunters, the land use and hunting maps make planning trips much easier.

How to offline maps

If you have a Membership or Premium subscription you can take maps offline. 

To do this on your phone tap the plus button at the top of the map, click Download Maps, then drag the red area over the maps you want to save. Use the slider in the top left to change how much you’d like to zoom in when offline. The more you can zoom the more space the maps take up.

To see what you already have saved offline, click Saved, click Filter in the top left, select Maps. Here it will show you the area you have saved. I try to name my map downloads so you can remember what area it’s for. 

Alternatives

There are some alternatives to Gaia in the GPS app space as well. AllTrails and ViewRanger come recommended as well. I haven’t used these apps in a while so I will update this section as I use them more. 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

If you’re looking for a great iPhone or Android app to track hikes and organize tracks and folders after, definitely look at GaiaGPS. The track embedding and sharing is a huge bonus as well.

The post Gaia GPS App Review first appeared on Pack & Trail.

1. Intro: Satellite Communication
2. GPS: Can they get you rescued? (this article)
3. Spot vs Garmin inReach (coming soon)
4. PLBs and Sat Phones (coming soon)

In the intro to this series on Satellite Communication, I did a brief overview of what’s out there now to communicate through satellite.There are GPS which help you navigate but not communicate, there are 1-way and 2-way satellite messengers that let you send small messages, and there are satellite phones for voice calls and text over satellite.We’ll be looking at GPS in this article, what they do and what they don’t do.To start, we need to look at what a GPS is. After that we can compare it to the other devices.

What is a GPS?

A GPS is an electronic device that shows your location on a map. You probably have a GPS in your phone. You might have one in your car. You might take one hiking with you. It shows your location on a map and where you’re going. Some of them show where you’ve been with a breadcrumb trail.

GPS talk to the satellites to figure out where you are on the planet. They do a bunch of math and show your location on the map. You can use them to navigate to a destination like a mountain or lake. Most GPS can show topo or other maps at the same time. They put your position on the map then you can see how far you are from the mountain or trail.

You can also put other things on your GPS like points of interest or old GPS tracks from you or other people. A point of interest might be a really nice viewpoint or a good place to have lunch. Download that file from the internet or copy it from a friends computer and then put it on you GPS. Now you can follow the GPS to get to exactly the same place again.

Most GPS also take a breadcrumb or GPS track of where you’ve been. You can put this track on your computer after the hike and see exactly where you’ve been. This can be really useful if you’re keeping track of the trails you’ve been on, you want to give the track to someone else after, or you want to see the track on a computer after. Drag the GPS track into Google Earth and see exactly where’ve gone and how close you came to where you wanted to go!In terms of hardware, GPS have a screen to see the map, some buttons to control what you are seeing and an antennae to talk to the satellites. Screens can be small and black and white or large, colour touchscreens.

GPS need large antennae to talk to the satellites. More expensive GPS have better antennae and get better reception. Trees and canyon walls will limit how many satellites the GPS sees and reduces the accuracy of your signal. Low connectivity is like having only 1 bar of reception on your phone. The more satellites the GPS can see the better it knows where you are. More satellites means the GPS can pinpoint your location down to within 3 metres. If the GPS can’t see many satellites then it might only be within 50 or 100 metres.

So a GPS shows your location on a map. That’s basically all it does. It’s simple but can be very helpful when you don’t know where you’re going or the weather makes it hard to see. Now we get into what the difference is between a GPS and a satellite communication device.

Differences between GPS and other satellite communication devices

So we looked at GPS in the previous section. They can’t send anything like a text message or email to other people. They only show your location on a map so you know where you are and the the mountains, lakes and trails around you.

Satellite messengers, personal locator beacons and satellite phones, on the other hand, can send messages out to other people. Some can text or email, some phone. Personal locator beacons send a message straight out to emergency authorities to come rescue you.

The line is getting blurry between what is a GPS and what is a satellite messenger.

Delorme put a GPS together with a satellite messengers in their inReach Explorer+ and SE+. Since then Garmin bought them and added better GPS.GPS are designed for navigating and following trails. They are good for following a GPS track or making a breadcrumb which you can look at after your hike on a computer or share with friends. Unless they have a satellite messenger built in, they don’t communicate with the outside world like the messengers do so they won’t help you get rescued.

The things that can help you get rescued are the ones that can connect with the outside world: satellite messengers, satellite phones, and personal locator beacons.In the next article (coming out soon) we’ll talk about a couple of good satellite messengers: the SPOT and InReach.

The post Satellite Communication: Can a GPS unit help you get rescued? (Part 2) first appeared on Pack & Trail.

GPS use batteries.

Electricity makes our modern life amazing but it can be a serious liability in the backcountry. Batteries don’t last forever. If you are using your GPS a lot and have all the features enabled, it may only last a few hours. That’s just about the amount of time it takes to get deep into the woods and have your gps batteries die.

If you are using a GPS, always have a backup like a map and compass or be able to get home without any of that. GPS are nice to have though and there are ways to increase that battery life so they last your whole hike.

Do a battery range test

One thing you can do to see what kind of battery life you are working with is a range test. When you are enabling and disabling certain features it can be hard to know what’s good and bad for battery life. By doing a range test you’ll be able to see how much something affects your battery life. You can also use it to test how long different batteries list.

To do a range test, enable everything you can on your gps and use it as much as possible. Keep it on and in use until it dies. Take down the time you started and the time the batteries died. This is the heavy use test, it should be the short end of your battery life. Most of the time it will last longer than this.

To get the greatest battery life, disable every feature you can (maybe by looking below to see what to disable) and then leave your GPS on until the batteries die. Don’t do anything with it. It will die eventually. This is the top end of your battery life.

Now you have your bottom end and your top end of your battery life. Now you can test usage with each of the tips below and see how it affects your battery life and find where it falls on the range from short battery life to long battery life.

Now here’s 10 ways to increase your GPS battery life. I’ve grouped them together to things related to your batteries, disabling features, the map, and the screen itself. I added photos from the screens on my Garmin Montana 600 to see what the menu’s look like.

Battery related tips

These tips relate to the batteries themselves.

Lithium Ion batteries with the highest mAh

Lithium batteries tend to last the longest, especially in cold weather. Also check the mAh measurement on your battery. The higher the mAh the longer the battery will last. 2500 mAh is pretty good. 3000 mAh can last as long as 56 hours on the Garmin Montana.

Use new batteries

Old batteries can have all sorts of problems or just not work well with your new GPS. Make sure you are using new batteries.

Make sure the battery type is set to the right setting

If the GPS allows you to use either Lithium Ion or NiMH batteries, then it might have a setting that tells the GPS what kind of battery it’s using. If it’s on the wrong battery type, your battery life won’t be what it should be. Make sure it’s set to the type of battery you are using.

Disabling features

Whenever you have a feature enabled on your GPS, it uses up battery life. If you are looking to extend that battery life, maybe you can disable a few things.

Here’s what you can disable on some devices

• electronic compass
• track record
• GLONASS
• WAAS

Turn off the electronic compass

Old GPS only know which direction you are going when you are moving. If the latest point on your GPS was north of the point before that, then your GPS assumes you’re pointing north. If you’re not moving then it doesn’t know which direction you are going.

The electronic compass in most new GPS knows exactly which way you are pointing at all times. This is handy when you come to a fork in the trail and you need to know which direction to go. It also uses more battery. If you don’t need this feature you can disable it.

Turn off the track record

The track record is the breadcrumb of where you went with the GPS. You can put this on your computer after or send it to friends. You can extend battery by disabling it.

Disable GLONASS

GLONASS is an alternative to GPS run by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. You can use it to get a faster location fix and battery accuracy in mountainous terrain because it’s using more satellites. It will drain your batteries faster.

Disable WAAS

WAAS stands for Wide Area Augmentation System. It’s a series of ground stations and satellites that help increase the accuracy of your GPS. It can help you get a more accurate location but it uses more battery. Disable if you want to save a bit.

Disable ANT+ Sensor

A few of the Garmin GPS have an ANT+ sensor on them. This lets them communicate with other devices like pedometers or heart rate monitors or other GPS.

Map screen related

The map is one of the most important screens on a GPS. What point is a GPS if we can’t see the map? Updating the map takes battery power. Less updates = more power saved.

Use the compass or the trip computer to navigate, not the map

If you can stay off the map screen as much as possible, you’ll save battery power. Drawing the map takes power to do and if you are always on the map screen then it’s always pulling power. If you can use the trip computer or compass to navigate then the GPS won’t be redrawing the map all the time. I often just use the GPS to take a track log and double check navigation decisions so it’s in my pack most of the time. While it’s in your bag or pocket, it’s displaying the main menu and not chewing batteries redrawing over and over.

Set map orientation to “North Up” instead of “Track Up”

Setting your map to North Up will always draw the map with North at the top of the screen. It never has to spin to orient itself to the direction you are pointing. This will save battery life but makes navigation a little more difficult. You have to point the GPS north yourself or make the adjustments in your head.

Set map speed to normal

Some GPS will let you set how often you want the map to redraw. The “Fast” option will update the map more often so it’s more accurate but every time the screen redraws the map it’s using power. The “Normal” option will redraw slower but use less power.

Screen related

The screen is one of the biggest power draws on GPS these days. Big, bright screens are easy to see but also draw a lot of power. We definitely need the screen to see what’s going on but we can adjust some options to make it use less power.

Turn down the backlight

The backlight is a power hog. Turn it down as low as you can use it.

Decrease the timeout time

After you’ve turned down the backlight, adjust the timeout time as low as you can set it. Just like your smart phone, the screen will turn off eventually. This is the timeout time. Set this as low as you can tolerate to save battery life.

Exit Camera app when not taking photos

Some new GPS have cameras on them. The photo app might continue running after you’ve finished using it. But it’s still draining power. Fully quit the app when you aren’t using it.

Set touch sensitivity to normal

Setting touch sensitivity on the screen might make it easier to use with your gloves and hands, but it’s going to draw more power. Keep the sensitivity setting on Normal to use the least amount of battery.

Enable Battery save mode

Battery save mode on some GPS will turn the display completely off when it times out. It also might disable WAAS so if you need that you won’t be able to enable this mode. This will gets save a bit more battery power.

To Summarize

Here’s the quick list of how to save battery life on your GPS.

• Use Lithium batteries
• Use new batteries
• Set the right battery type
• Disable electronic compass
• Disable track record
• Disable GLONASS
• Disable WAAS
• Use compass instead of the map
• Set map orientation North up
• Set map speed normal
• Turn down the backlight
• Turn down the backlight timeout
• Exit the camera app
• Set Touch sensitive to normal
• Enable Battery save mode

What do you think? 

What do you think of these tips? Do they work with your GPS? Do you have any other go to tips for increasing your battery life?

The post 15 Ways to Extend your GPS Battery Life first appeared on Pack & Trail.

This is the first post in a series on the features of Garmin Basecamp and how to use them. Follow these and you’ll spend less time fiddling around with Basecamp on the computer and more time outside hiking.

What’s Garmin Basecamp?

Garmin’s GPS software is called Basecamp. If you’ve had a Garmin for a while you might remember MapSource, a clunky program for loading maps and tracks onto Garmin GPS.

MapSource is still around but you probably don’t want to download it since a much nicer program has replaced it. Garmin Basecamp is far easier to use, nicer on the eyes and has better features.

Anything you want to do with your GPS software you can probably do with Basecamp. There are some limitations and things you’ll need to pay for but if you use your GPS regularly it’s worth it. 

What’s in the rest of this series?

The rest of the series will include (eventually) everything you can do with Basecamp. They will come out with new versions and (hopefully)  more features to make our lives easier. I’ll link to all the posts below when they come out.

Here’s what we’re going to start with:

How to export GPS tracks from Basecamp to Google Earth

How to view a track from your GPS

How to create a track in Basecamp and send it to your GPS

How to view photos in Basecamp

How to create waypoints in Basecamp and send to your GPS

How to edit and clean a track from your GPS 

The post Garmin Basecamp Series: Everything you need to know about Garmin’s GPS Software first appeared on Pack & Trail.

I’ve had the chance to use a few different GPS over the last couple years. They were all Garmin but they all had different features that I could test out and see if I liked. There were things that I liked and things that I didn’t like. I used my friends of families when I could so I didn’t have to buy my own. I finally got one of my own and opted for the Garmin Colorado 300 because of the slightly bigger screen and faster navigation method than was the standard at the time.

Little did I know that the Colorado wasn’t going to last very long. Garmin discontinued it soon after I got mine. Fortunately I never had any problems with it and aside from one little thing I never liked about the interface, it served me well adventuring over many kilometers dirtbiking, hiking, skiing and running.

The only big problem with it was that you could only have one saved track showing at once on the map. For the most part this wasn’t a problem. If you wanted to follow a trail you displayed the track and away you went. It was an issue when I would go to areas that I had been before and had saved tracks from. I wasn’t sure where each track lead and where I had been already. I could cycle through the tracks, displaying each one in turn to see where they lead but that was incredibly time consuming. In the end, without any updates from Garmin, I was stuck viewing only one track at a time.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was heading out to check out a climbing area I hadn’t seen yet on my dirtbike. The power lines and dirt roads were rough but fairly clear. My Colorado was firmly attached to it’s handlebar mount and directing me where to go. I was following a track from a friend. On the way back, roads sloped mostly downhill. Not a problem for my knobby tires, I’ll just go slow and lay off the back brake so I don’t skid too much. I was almost back out onto the pavement and one my way home when I noticed something missing from my handlebars.

In the middle of the last little hill I came down, the Colorado and popped loose from hit’s mount and gone sailing down onto the rocks. If you aren’t familiar with the Colorado, it’s got a wheel above the screen for navigating through the menus. That had popped right off. The screen had a good gouge in it. It wasn’t turning on. This wasn’t looking good.I searched for a good 15 minutes for the wheel but came up empty-handed. I tossed the remains into my bag and headed home, wandering what would come up my mangled GPS. On one hand, I wasn’t very happy about having to spend a few hundred dollars to get a new gps unit. On the other hand, a new line of Garmin’s had just come out and promised to be one of the sweetest trail GPS yet. Sad or excited. I wasn’t sure which.

I in touch with Garmin, whom, to my surprise, directed me to their repair shop in Canada. For a decent fee plus shipping I could get a refurbished Colorado. Could I get a credit towards a new one? Nope. Ok, so another dilemma; Do I wait a few weeks and pay to get a refurbished version of a gps I don’t really like sent my way, or do I check out the brand new GPS at my local shop, Valhalla Pure.

I know which one is more fun.

Enter the Garmin Montana 600

So needless to say, I checked out the new gps units. I knew the Garmin 62 series would be nice, and there was the Oregon line that had the touch screens as well. Then there was the primo, top-of-the-line radness that Garmin had just released called the Montana. At first glance, it was entirely impractical for hiking and really anything else that I’d want to do with it.

The 62 had the best antennae you could get out of any of the GPS. But it still had the tiny little buttons that were so clunky on the 60csx and 78 series I had used before. Nice for finding things and tracking but terrible if you wanted to jot down a waypoint name. Ten minutes later you can have a nicely named waypoint.

The Oregon series is about the same size as the 62 but has a touch screen. That’s nice, solves the problem of entering waypoints. You get a nice touch screen to add your comments and waypoint names too. It wouldn’t take forever. I think the screens had been updated since the first versions that were almost impossible to see in the sun. A possible ding against the Oregon’s though.

Then I played with the Montana. Large yes, but not much bigger than a 78 series I had used before. A laundry list of new features definitely piqued my interest.

Paperless Geocaching

My Colorado was actually able to do this but I didn’t use it much. I didn’t have a premium subscription to Geocaching.com and didn’t get the hints downloaded to the unit so I had to write them down anyways. I decided to try the whole deal out. I have a premium membership now and have found 4 geocaches with the Montana. If you you geocache this is definitely the way to go. No paper and a couple clicks to get all the info from Geocaching.com to the unit and back again. My only gripe with it is that you can’t click on the geocache on the map and get the hint for it. You have to go through the list of geocaches and find it through there.

Landscape or Portrait viewing mode

It’s like holding a big iPhone. All you do is flip the unit on its side and you’ve everything turns for you. It’s definitely my preferred way to look at the map and to type in waypoints. I wish the keyboard was set up exactly the same as the iPhone’s because that’s what I’m in the habit of typing. I keep hitting the shift key when I think I’m hitting something else. I went from almost never renaming waypoints to writing full sentences about them. It’s just so nice to do with the landscape touch screen.

Enabling and disabling tracks on the map

My big problem with the Colorado was solved with the Montana. You can show and hide any tracks you want on the map. If you want to do a bunch, it’s going to take a while. You can only do one at a time. It would be a definitely improvement if they could make it easier to do a bunch at once.

Lithium ion battery pack or 3 double A batteries

I almost didn’t buy it because it has a lithium ion battery back for power. Don’t go scoffing that decision by Garmin though. They changed it up and made a really smart decision afterwards to add the compatibility of the battery pack OR 3 double A’s. The battery pack recharges right in the unit so when you have it plugged in at the computer, it’s charging for your next adventure. If you kill the battery out in the woods, pop those 3 spare double A’s in there and away you go. 16 hours for the pack and 22 with the double A’s.

Nuvi-like car controls and talking car mount

This was half the reason I ended up being it. I wanted a Nuvi, one of the in-car GPS that talks and does that great stuff. I didn’t want to buy both though. Throw the Montana into it’s powered car mount with a speaker, load up some road maps and it will talk to you just like a Nuvi. Perfect. A solid trail GPS and a Nuvi in one. I haven’t actually used this feature yet as I’m waiting for the car mount to arrive at Valhalla Pure. I’ll throw up an update when I get a chance to test the vehicular side of things. I’d like to get a handlebar mount for the dirtbike as well but I’m hesitant to have another incident that killed the Colorado.

4 inch touch screen that you can actually see in the sun

The other reason I bought the Montana. The screen is huge. 4 inches to be exact. It’s bigger than an iPhone. When you are trying to see where trails, logging roads and possible routes go on the screen of your GPS, it just can’t be big enough. The old Oregon’s had some coating on the screen that made it very difficult to see in the sun. No problems with the Montana. I was out on the weekend with it in the sun and no problems at all. No squinting, no hiding in a dark room just to see the screen. The touch screen makes all the difference in the world with navigation and typing out waypoints and geocaching notes. What would take at least 5 minutes with buttons or a roller takes less than 30 seconds on the touch screen. I am worried how on long the screen is going to last bouncing around in a backpack or in the elements. I think a hard case for over the screen is going to be on order.

Bundles of waypoints and tracks for each adventure

This might just be a new update for Garmin’s Basecamp software but now you can bundle waypoints and tracks and ship them around on and off your device. They call it an Adventure. A perfect name for a group of things. You can also add images to that if you have pictures on your Montana. I didn’t get the version with the camera but one has a 5 megapixel camera. The photos are geotagged and uploaded to your computer with the tracks and waypoints.

Adventure Time

And that is the story about how I got a Garmin Montana 600 in my pocket. I would say it’s time to head out on an adventure but it’s more likely that it’s time to hit the sac! If anyone’s got a good story about their GPS, feel free to share it in the comments!

The post Garmin Montana 600 GPS Review first appeared on Pack & Trail.