It was
dark when I left this morning, and Swiss Army was still snoring as I crept out
of camp. In just a short
distance, the trail crossed over a clear stream of ice-cold mountain water. I stopped to fill my water
containers, and in the dim light of my headlamp, I could see that there was a
fork in the trail. A little
confused as to which way to go, I made my judgment based on the depth of the
tread in the trail. I chose
the left-hand fork and hoped it was the correct one. Not too far along the trail, my
choice was verified by a PCT metal marker tacked to a tree. However, had I been totally confused
concerning which trail to take, I could have retrieved my Garmin GPS, turned it
on, and chosen my direction from the information that would appear on the
screen.
To my
knowledge, I was one of the few trail hikers that was actually using a
stand-alone GPS such as Garmin for direction finding, and for good reason; it's
old-school technology compared to what is now available. Most of the
hikers who used GPS for direction and location finding did so with a
downloadable app for their Smartphone. The two most common apps were
Halfmile's, offered free by the
owner, Lon Cooper, who produces the paper maps most hikers use, and another app
called Guthook, which is a set of four downloadable maps, one each for Southern
and Northern California, Oregon, and Washington, at a cost of $5.99 per
download.
When I
bought my Garmin GPS in 2011, GPS apps for the Smartphones weren’t available.
With the Garmin, I was able to download all of Halfmile’s maps into the
unit and it worked reasonably well, although I never really became proficient
with it. When activated, it would display waypoints, then with the mouse
hovering over the waypoint, the mileage from the Mexican border would be
displayed on the screen. I never found the setting that would show the
PCT as an actual line on the map, which was disconcerting.
Many
hikers had both apps downloaded in their Smartphones and both were
user-friendly, but from what I saw, Guthook’s app provided a ton of information
in addition to pinpointing one’s location on the trail. I had Guthook’s
app downloaded on my Version Android phone, but it took so long for the GPS to
pinpoint my position, that I didn’t use it much, and when it did refresh, it
always started at the front of the trail, as opposed to starting at my actual
position.
At the
fork in the trail, had I turned it on and had it been working properly, I would
have seen my position at the stream with the fork in the trail. The blue
line, which was a representation of the trail set against a green background,
which represented the terrain around the trail, would have shown the trail
leading off to the left. If I had taken the right-hand fork, the mouse
pointer would have instantly indicated my position in relation to the trail,
and I could have made an immediate course correction.
If I were to do the
Pacific Crest Trail again, I would leave my Garmin GPS home and buy an iPhone
with all of Guthook's maps properly, and I emphasize properly, downloaded into
the unit.
The maps
I’m using aren’t expanded enough to give a real bird’s-eye view of the land
surrounding the trail, which makes it hard to keep straight the boundary lines
between forest lands and wilderness lands.
Etna
Summit and the road leading down to the small community of Etna were now just a
few miles away. The trail began a gradual descent down a canyon, and as I
got nearer to Etna Summit and the highway that crossed over it, I could see the
land falling off to either side of the ridge.
The last big push took me
down the trail of dirt and rock to the trailhead and parking lot and to a
bright green 1978 Volkswagen bus sitting at the edge of the road. I knew
instantly that the bus belonged to Weebee’s parents, Kermit and June Bug, and
they were performing trail magic. I was so delighted to see them; we all
embraced like we were long-lost friends and had known each other since
childhood. Actually, this was the third time I had encountered them on
the trail. They are such sweet people with oversized hearts of gold.
They invited me to sit in a camp chair around the small camp table they
had set up next to their bus. They offered cookies, salty snacks, and
cold lemonade. The best part of their trail magic was just the
opportunity to sit in a real chair. As we visited, I contemplated how
best to get into Etna – twelve miles distance, and it was soon apparent that
hitchhiking was the only solution. I inquired about Runs-with-Elk and
Cookie, and Kermit said they had come through a few hours ago, and immediately
caught a ride.
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