19
Spent $120 on a fancy GPS watch and it almost got me lost on the Pacific Crest Trail near Crater Lake
I bought this Garmin watch thinking it would be the best thing for navigation. But the battery died after 8 hours and the maps glitched out. I ended up backtracking 2 miles to find the trail marker I missed. Has anyone else had a GPS device fail on them mid-hike?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
claire_ramirez221mo agoMost Upvoted
Honestly I had a similar thing happen with a Suunto on the Appalachian Trail last fall.
1
alice_reed471mo ago
Similar thing with a Suunto" makes me wonder how many people are actually using these navigation watches wrong from the start. I've seen hikers trust them blindly instead of treating them like a backup tool. On the AT last year I watched a guy nearly walk off a ridge because his Suunto said the trail was 50 feet to the left. The thing was off by a quarter mile because he didn't calibrate it after swapping batteries. Maps and a compass still beat a watch when the signal gets wonky under tree cover.
10