Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

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hikeologist
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Re: Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

Post by hikeologist » April 27th, 2023, 5:44 pm

This last Sunday my friend and I hiked Dog Mountain in the Gorge! We learned lots of lessons - namely that hiking in a cloud is probably not going to be a good time. I imagine this is why I've seen the recommendations for only climbing South Sister in good weather, which is fair.
The top of Dog Mountain was a little scary (very windy, not good visibility, rainy and cold) but we did it! The wildflowers were not quite out, though we saw a few early ones.
The mileage/elevation was challenging but doable. I'm glad though that we're going to prepare for South Sister :)

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drm
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Re: Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

Post by drm » May 1st, 2023, 3:22 pm

I haven't been up Table Mtn in years because I don't want to do it from Bonneville. Didn't know the other option was available now.

The thing about "boring" hikes (which usually means no long-distance views or waterfalls), is that in the Gorge, many now have totally burned forests as well.

hikeologist
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Re: Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

Post by hikeologist » July 23rd, 2023, 3:19 pm

Fun update: I was able to climb South Sister this weekend with one of my friends, and boy was it an adventure.

I am really grateful for all the advice I received - I had gaiters for the scree (which was as much of a challenge as described) and enough water to get me through the hike. I also think having my poles saved me a few times heading down the scree - I fell a few times but I think I would’ve fallen more without the stabilization they provided. I did climb the three out of the four “training” hikes I originally listed - dog mountain, Hardy ridge, and larch mountain crater.

Something that was weird that I haven’t really figured out - the distance that is advertised is 6.25 to the top from Devil’s Lake TH. This is on the official sign. The Sullivan trail description, the AllTrails info say 11.6 miles. Yet somehow my tracking (which is generally fairly accurate for other hikes) estimated it at closer to 7.8 miles, which worked out to over 15 miles which is a little different than 12.4 (or the 11.6 I see other places). Has anyone experienced this, or know the reason for such a disparity?

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Bosterson
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Re: Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

Post by Bosterson » July 23rd, 2023, 4:22 pm

Your mileage will probably be an over estimate when reading it off the GPS itself due to jitter (phantom "movement" as the signal bounces around). This gets worse the more you stop or the longer you sit around (it's fun to look at a GPS track and note the cluster of fake "movement" created whenever you stop and have a snack), or if you're moving really really slowly, or in areas that have poor GPS reception like canyons. Try downloading your track and importing into something like Caltopo and then analyze it - a lot of jitter usually gets smoothed out unless it's really bad. Generally speaking, if your GPS recorded mileage is drastically different from everyone else, then you are probably the one who is wrong. :)

As a reference, since South Sister has a trail, you can pull up the Mapbuilder layer in Caltopo and then draw a line from the trailhead to the top - it will automatically snap to the trail. Then analyze your line and it'll probably give you around 6 mi one way (the standard distance for South Sister). The Mapbuilder layer is based on GPS data so it's usually pretty accurate. If you've imported your track, you should be able to directly compare it to the measured trail.
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retired jerry
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Re: Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

Post by retired jerry » July 23rd, 2023, 6:30 pm

Using gaia, it says devils lake to south sister is 5.6 miles.

It snaps to trails that gaia knows about, and looking at the trails it used, thats the route normally taken by hikers, so I think that should be close.

I have no track which would get a better estimate.

Did you take a track for what you did? That should be better than just using the odometer which could have more errors like bosterson mentioned

hikeologist
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Re: Longtime Lurker, First Time Poster

Post by hikeologist » July 23rd, 2023, 7:56 pm

The only gps I have is from my Apple Watch so I’m not sure a. How accurate it is and b. How to export that route, but it would be cool to figure out!

I know some other reviewers on AllTrails said their distances didn’t match the phone’s tracking, and neither did my hike partner’s, but the jitter makes sense - I guess I didn’t realize that it could add that much!

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