I'll always carry map and compass of course but this gadget, to me, is a keeper. The light works well and I like the date and time feature so I no longer need to wear/destroy a nice watch and its light enough that I don’t much notice the weight. Barometer altimeters are all inaccurate so I never trust one anyway. I can sit still and the altimeter says I climb 50-60 feet in elevation over the span of a minute. The wrist strap, which fits fantastically, has an extender so it can be worn over a coat or up the forearm which I like even more.Īs an altimeter it suffers because it uses a barometer for measuring elevation. In almost-whiteout conditions, Foretrex on left wrist. A lot of military guys seem to use these and even they give it generally good reports from battle conditions. I wore it on a recent hike and it was exposed to a heavy drizzle the entire trip and remained waterproof and took a few lumps from getting banged about. I use it trail running in the mornings and like the ease that it keeps track of the miles I run and my speed, though I think the speedometer is slightly more accurate at higher (driving) speeds because it clocked me jogging at 11 mph the other day and I KNOW I wasn’t going that fast. Once calibrated, which is simple, the arrow in the display brought me to within spitting distance of my way-point every time. After that it consistently brought me to within six feet of my way-point. Then I figured out to calibrate it, I guess reading directions can help. The reception under the trees was fine at least. In my first real backpacking situation I found it to be horribly inaccurate, it told me to go in the opposite direction that I knew I had to go. “So, Jeff, how’d that work for ya?” It worked fine-ish, in a day or two of tinkering I had it down, except one small thing which I will elaborate on below. I dislike the larger units and they cost a mint so the small size and wear-ability of the Foretrex appealed to me.ĭid I even glance at the user’s guide? Did I look at the CD that came with it? Heck no! Electronics need to be intuitive enough so that instructions are unnecessary. I wanted a GPS so I could navigate without stopping to take a back-azimuth and without pulling out the map and note paper. In these cases I used map, compass and cairns and obviously I survived just fine. Several times in the last two seasons I have had to find my way back to camp in a whiteout. I read other on-line reviews and pulled the trigger on this one. I gave the Foretrex 401 a chance after deciding that trying to read a map on an GPS wasn’t what I wanted but rather a way to find way-points in a whiteout. It was heavy, devoured batteries and had a teeny little screen that was about useless. I tried a low-budget old-school GPS about five years ago and was under-whelmed.
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