thinking of leaving Gaia.. OnX?

[BritKLR]

As long as either doesn’t have this feature you should be good.

3.4M views · 122K reactions | The worst! 😖 #gps #music #funny #comedy #reels #explore #celinedion #relatable | Justin Taite

The worst! 😖 #gps #music #funny #comedy #reels #explore #celinedion #relatable.

www.facebook.com

 

[BritKLR]

https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/national-geographic-trails-illustrated-maps-removed-from-gaia-gps.248235/

 

[jps8460]

https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/national-geographic-trails-illustrated-maps-removed-from-gaia-gps.248235/

Well that would suck! I just checked and my nat geo layers are still there for now.

 

[Corbet]

I ended up adding the OnX offroad elite to my current hunting version. At 70% off it was too cheap to pass up and will use it this summer to Alaska. I don’t geek out much on GPS stuff. Have a paper map already highlighted for the whole trip. But this will be nice for day trips deviating off the primary travel plan.

 

[Burt88]

What I'm gathering from this thread is that whatever interface you prefer and find easy to use is the one to choose.

I personally didn't like OnX when I tried to use it. Simple preference. I've also been on a trip where two different OnX users were following a "trail" that took two different routes. Then there was a another instance of a misnamed mountain over by Silverton. Then another instance where a road in Pitkin County was open to ATV when it's not.

I've been using Gaia for years with very few problems. Perhaps it's because I don't use all the features. I'm unsure why I haven't had as many problems as what others experience. I am a little upset that the price is going up again but I'll probably never use OnX.

 

[DaveInDenver]

https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/national-geographic-trails-illustrated-maps-removed-from-gaia-gps.248235/

Reading the Gaia press release they say they're dropping the Nat Geo but including the NPS visitor brochures, which are even less detailed and useful. It seems like they don't really know what core market they want to serve. Probably no more than just a way to cut costs. The government doesn't charge for maps while Nat Geo does. You can buy Trails Illustrated maps on Avenza already if you want georeferenced PDF but I assume OnX will pick up the annual subscription model for them from Gaia. In fact along with Trail Illustrated you can add all the USFS/BLM/NPS maps you want in Avenza. The GIS features are barebones in Avenza but for just seeing where you are on pre-built PDF maps it's fine. You have to buy each NatGeo individually but it's one-time and you have it forever, which I prefer to subscriptions. If anything the Gaia change demonstrates the benefit to one-time buy over subscription long term.

 

[nakman]

My experience with the Nat Geo trails illustrated maps is they just aren't that detailed. It's fun to pull out a big map and see where you are, get a feel for the area, etc., and I have them for pretty much all the places I travel. But they're less detailed than any Gaia/OnX... like there's just another level of spurs they just don't have, to the point where I just don't look as them anymore, or the layer on Gaia.

I'm getting better at navigating OnX, still don't like it. However I notice it shows who owns all the houses in my neighborhood... figure this is why the hunters like this, right? Kind of interesting seeing all the names cruise by, on one had it reminds me what everyone's name is, otoh I have lost a little feeling of anonymity.

 

[DouglasVB]

FWIW, I use the Trails Off-Road app and it's been sufficient for my day-to-day uses. They have most of the USFS and BLM data loaded, and for some more popular trails they have detailed waypoint and difficulty information. Occasionally I'll run into a spur road that shows on the app plus on the USFS MVUM but on the ground has been physically closed (debris in trail, sign saying closed, obviously an old road that they took out of service). It does not have detailed private land ownership info but does show what land is private versus public with a good degree of accuracy. I've done a little bit with routing/navigation but normally I prefer to make decisions on the fly as I go through a trail network.

I also use a few different free apps that have offline open street map data which comes in handy at times.

And I have Garmin InReach which comes with all of the offline map layers that DeLorme used to own (they got bought by Garmin a decade ago).

And I keep all of the georeferenced MVUMs handy to load into a free version of Avenza.

What I have been meaning to do for a while is get back into QGIS and build my own maps. There's nothing quite like a custom hand-crafted map.

Oh and I also carry a large assortment of paper maps for wherever I go. There's nothing like unfolding a detailed map of a region and planning where I want to go.

 

[DaveInDenver]

That's really the bottom line. No app is perfect for everyone and every situation. The data underlying them is mostly only from a few sources so errors are likely to propagate. There's often discrepancies even amongst primary sources such as USGS and USFS or BLM.

Garmin for their TopoActive seems to pull often from OpenStreetMap and that's open source from anyone drawing or following a route and uploading it. So that's garbage in, garbage out. Governments and highly accurate private sources put information into OSM but so do dingleberries with an uncorrected consumer Garmin in their backpack. Most off highway routing is based on OSM or what's published by USFS in MVUM or BLM in TMP.

OSM has methods to check data but it's very useful to me because local names are usually preserved there while official sources will generally defer to the USGS GNIS, which will not recognize historical names. It's sometimes inconvenient politically or socially but knowing what locals call (or used to call) a trail or feature is nice to know, especially when you're trying to cross it on historical topo maps.

If you ever want to know the "official" name for something in the U.S. you can find it here:

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Geospatial Program developed the GNIS in support of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names as the official repository of domestic geographic names data, the official vehicle for geographic names use by all departments of the Federal Government, and the source...

www.usgs.gov

@nakman Ownership and parcel data is public record. Your county most likely publishes a GIS database linked to the assessor and county clerk that anyone can access. Colorado rolls up county data into the statewide GIS portal. You county portal will likely show property transactions records, too. So your financial data to some extent is there, too.

State of Colorado Map Viewer

gis.colorado.gov

You'll find it here under the Location -> Parcels and Addresses data layers.

 

[DaveInDenver]

To give some context, I took the section right over Medano Pass to compare maps.

OSM


Caltopo's default Map Builder Topo basemap


USGS


USFS


MVUM


Caltopo's Motor Vehicle layer (the green track, essentially just highlighting the MVUM)


Caltopo's scanned topo


You can sort of see how data is pulled. Caltopo uses the OSM data heavily to build their map. This is fine but relies on whoever put the route into OSM to correctly map it, describe it, tag it to prompt the router to know how to use it. There's embedded tags that tell OSM if the route is singletrack, doubletrack, improved, class of road, surface, legal or accepted uses, etc. There's no way any GIS program can have enough people to review every piece of data so it has to assume it's done correctly.

The benefit of OSM over other options (paid or government) is that you have thousands of people putting eyes on the database to find errors. The volume of data in OSM dwarfs most other sources, including USGS and USFS and it's in a format that's easy to integrate. USGS has the data available but takes some conversion and mostly doesn't finely classify anything and the detail is uniformly precise, everything is equally displayed so you can't really use it directly to navigate. USFS and BLM data is more specialized, less easy to integrate into mapping apps on the fly but is primary source to give legal definitions.

OSM is the catch all but can't always be right and the map tiles are hard to read. Secondary sources use it but add their own format and/or corrections (which might be other sources, surveys like USGS, guides, private mappers like TomTom or Google), which makes them no longer open source and free. There's no guarantee the corrections are right but it's usually the result of someone actually doing it or at least looking at it, so value is added.

Why I like Caltopo, though, isn't obvious in these. When you draw a route it can snap a line to the OSM, USFS, MVUM or hydrological (routes that follow natural fall lines) data. Or you can freehand or snap to an existing line (perhaps a GPX you imported). To leverage Caltopo you need to do work upfront on the desktop, although the mobile app routing is OK you have to cache custom mapsheets/mapboxes and routes into your account for them to be available later. The mobile app is a pared down version of the desktop. It's straddles the line between mavigation and full GIS like ArcGIS or QGIS. It's why the wildland fire like it. A tech can build custom maps in camp and push them to mobile users. As standalone on a phone it's not as useful, especially compared to OnX or Gaia.

 

[Corbet]

OnX Offroad

 

[DanInDenver]

1910 & 1921 paper

 

[Burt88]

In the case of map layers, in Gaia I've primarily relied on their Gaia Overland layer as my base layer using it 99% of my driving time and used all others for localized reference. The NatGeo layer has been useful on occasion and the government maps are mostly useful when plotting my route and researching geologic features. The overland layer uses very little data for my offline downloads so maybe why mine doesn't crash as often as some folks.

 

[DaveInDenver]

1910 & 1921 paper

That is super cool. Got me to thinking, the USGS scans their old maps and makes them available for download.

The oldest they have from this area is 1892: https://store.usgs.gov/product/849787

This is a scaled down JPG of it (the original PDF was a C.S.M. copy, it's worth downloading).



Caltopo offers these historical maps for some locations and happened to have this one prepared, neat line cropped. Had to shrink them a lot to get under the forum file size limit so resolution is terrible at the same scale (1:125,000) as the original but you get the idea. I marked the current locations and names we use today. Notice a few things have changed, like it was called Madenos Pass then and where they put Music Pass was little different. But the surveyors and cartographers were consistent, neat to see the D&RG rail to US160 change.

I love old maps.

 

[nakman]

Ok question for any OnX users... @Corbet? So I want to make a route where I drive to a trailhead, then proceed on foot and do a hiking trail. For example say I want to drive Stillwater Pass out of Grand Lake, then park at a trailhead and hike to Lost Lake. In Gaia, that's quite simple, route would look like this:

However OnX doesn't want me to drive on the hiking trail. So I can make it to the trailhead, but then I'm unable to continue..

I realize this is a feature, but is there even a way to tell OnX that I really just want to go on a hike? I can change the filters to show "single tracks," but this again defaults to motorized stuff only, and I don't want to bring my motorcycle I really just want to hike to the lake.

So the question is, in OnX is there a way so change what "activity" I want to route, so the software allows me to select a hiking trail? I have the "offroad elite membership" and my only option when I look at my account settings is to downgrade to "premium membership." Is the hunting interface totally different or something? Presuming that's what's necessary to put a route on a hiking trail, how would I add that?

 

[nakman]

answering my own question... looks like to route a hike in OnX one must purchase OnX Backcountry, a completely separate application. And they don't offer any type of bundle. lame. but this is more of what I was hoping for, in this case I'm just going to walk on the road, as far as the map is concerned.

 

[Corbet]

I was going to say that.

I’m not an advanced level gps user. I just look at the map and where I’m at. I don’t do any advanced route planning. Some friends do and they send me the OnX file. At most I’ll drop a pin on where I plan to go and simply read the map as I go like a paper map.

In addition to OnX I have Garmin Earthmate that works with my InReach. For hiking I generally default to that.

I agree OnX should offer a bundle or a single offering that includes all their data in one app.

 

[nakman]

Looks like one can get OnX Backcountry for $10. So I got it... I am planning a hiking trip in 2 weeks and need to get some routes set out ahead of time... in hindsight I could maybe get away with just the Backcountry version? I will know for sure after July when I run a bunch of stuff around Silverton again, like what level of detail does each have, etc. I really don't care if Yankee Boy basin is rated a green or a blue for example, but the fact that there's a road I can follow on the way to the Mt. Sneffels trail head is likely good enough for me. I'm still cheaper than dropping another $90 on Gaia though, even with the offroad app.

My experience with that Garmin Earthmate map though is it's the worst of the worst- some of the hikes I've done we've been completely off a trail according to Earthmate, I may as well try to use Apple Maps. And that's within a National park even, where Gaia, OnX, the Nat Geo layers, all show a dotted line... and I'm just waking in outer space per Earthmate. And yes I did download the maps first. Maybe it got better? I quit using it after being so disappointed like 4 years ago... in fact, I'm questioning why I still even have the InReach for that matter. for another thread, perhaps.

 

[Corbet]

Have you downloaded multiple map options with Earthmate? I agree it can be hit or miss but if I check in advance I can download other options like USGS quads for the area. Again for my basic use its been fine. I'm often off trail anyway so as lonog as I have a good topo I'm happy.