New to Gaia - seeking tips on loading routes and printing maps

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karenlevy
Posts: 3
Joined: July 2nd, 2018, 7:11 pm

New to Gaia - seeking tips on loading routes and printing maps

Post by karenlevy » July 7th, 2018, 5:58 am

I decided it's finally time to ditch the paper map and compass and go electronic, so I downloaded the GaiaGPS app on my iphone and went through this awesome tutorial: http://www.adventurealan.com/iphone-gps ... ckpacking/

I entered a route manually for a day hike today and will try it out prior to using it for backpacking next week.

A couple of questions:
1) Manually entering the route is kind of a pain on my phone. I tried it on the laptop via GaiaGPS.com, and it worked briefly but then wouldn't load. Still can't get anything to load once I enter a trail or location name in the search bar. Do folks enter routes on their phones or laptops?
2) I'm guessing there are trusted sources for routes that people have already loaded? What's your go-to?
3) I've seen reference to downloading Gaia routes to Caltopo to print out (I want a hard copy backup in case electronics die) but I haven't been able to figure out how to do it.

Thanks for any tips you have for this GPS newbie!
Karen

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mjirving
Posts: 1185
Joined: July 5th, 2011, 10:40 am

Re: New to Gaia - seeking tips on loading routes and printing maps

Post by mjirving » July 8th, 2018, 5:47 pm

I’ve only created a route once or twice. I always find a track from someone else on gpsfly.org or on the Gaia website. That way it’s from someone who actually walked the route.

I mail the gpx file to myself and then press and hold on the attachment on my phone and then open/copy it into Gaia as my choice after the press and hold.

Gpsfly doesn’t have search functionality so if you just go to google and type “SearchTerm site:gpsfly.org” it will return links to all the tracks from that site only for you to look through. So if I was looking for Mt Defiance I’d put “defiance site:gpsfly.org”

Also. The owners guide in the phone app is excellent. My advice is to just start at the top and work through each tutorial to be familiar with the use. It’s such a powerful and awesome app. I’ve been using the pro version for years.

I also love using the free companion app on the Apple Watch. It’s probably my favorite 3rd party app on my watch. So nice to just glance at time, mileage, pace, altitude, etc.

Mike

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aiwetir
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Joined: December 10th, 2014, 11:54 am
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Re: New to Gaia - seeking tips on loading routes and printing maps

Post by aiwetir » July 9th, 2018, 1:50 am

1. Yeah, don't bother on the phone unless it's in a pinch. The PC isn't much better IMO, so I use RideWithGPS or Graphhopper https://graphhopper.com/maps/ to build my routes. You should find your routes from another source or from the GaiaGPS website, the app doesn't help much here.

3. Since you'll be printing, you'll be on the PC and not the phone, so go to your Gaia account online and while viewing your track, just above the map there's a "Data" link, download a track in GPX or KML(Z) and then you can upload that to CalTopo. At CalTopo, at the top of the page there is an "Import" link, upload your file there. Your print link is a few inches to the right of the import link.
- Michael

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