Marking with GPS

[guest@endurance.net]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net
Jim Mitchell said:

>   A track on your GPS that proves you didn't shortcut the trail.
>(Unlike what Kat says), most units record where you went, so you can
>prove you followed the course, or it can be proved you didn't.

This assumes that you had the GPS on all the time rather than just when
you thought you would need to look at it....which does rather eat into
batteries...and that it is receiving a signal all the time (which if you
have it stuffed in your pack isn't necessarily the case and if you are
riding through heavy forest or deep canyons it also would not be the case,
which doesn't apply when riding across the Great Plains).

>    Kat states she had problems following the trail when the waypoints
> got close together. Kat had a Magellan unit I believe. Those of us with
> modern Garmin units did not seem to have this problem.

Actually, I had the Garmin that the Duck sold me.  If I needed to have a
unit better than the one provided to me by the ride manager....hmmmm....

>    Disadvantages:
>  Kat is correct that the GPS requires you to look down at it sometimes,
> or a lot of the time, and on a fresh, wild horse this may not be
> feasible. In this case I follow a veteran horse with a GPS person on
> board until my fresh horse calms down.

And maybe my dislike of GPS only marking as a general practice comes from
this.  I ride lots of green horses.  I have one (yes, the one that ran me
into a tree at the Grand Canyon) that I have to constantly remind myself
that it is essential that I keep both hands on the horse and my attention
focused on the trail and what her responses to the environment might
be...or I might end up in the ICU once again.

One could (and quite reasonably) make the argument that this horse is not
really a good candidate for an endurance horse; however, I still contend
that it is dangerous for any rider on even the most placid of horses to be
consistantly focused on looking down at a device in their hand...it's just
that this one particular horse of mine is good at reminding me of the
importance of this lesson.

The GPS marking worked fine for the ride this summer.  When the course
entails, pretty much, riding 50 miles due west with nary an obstacle in
sight, it is virtually impossible to cut the trail (so if I was off
course, it matters not one whit).  And yes, the GPS waypoints were
excellent for ensuring that even people who may get off course can find
their way to the vet check or the finish anyway.

And I can think of other rides I have done that would be just a suitable
for being marked in this way, and it did have the wonderful by-product of
getting good written directions and and accurate map which is what I
really used for navigating the trail because I could look at those in
advance and memorize and look for what I needed to do next...and I only
used the GPS when those things were not sufficiently clear.  But the place
where they became unclear is where the trail got a little tricky...and
where the trail gets a little tricky is hardly the place where I consider
it appropriate to require riders to take their focus off their horses.

And, as I said, in those places, if I was sufficiently confused (and I
couldn't follow the tracks of the horses in front of me because clearly
they were as confused as I was), I just told myself "I know I need to be
over there." and figured out for myself the best way to get there, for all
I know I could have cut out something like Cougar Rock by having done so;
although, one would think that something like Cougar Rock would have been
on the written directions, but if that is the case then in one particular
instance, I figure I was probably off course because "drop down a six foot
bank, ford a 25 foot wide river, and jump up the bank on the other side"
probably would have been on the directions too.  But that didn't keep me
from doing it.  I knew I needed to be on the other side of the river
(because the road that WAS on the directions was on the other side of the
river...but actually crossing the river wasn't) and I didn't see any
bridge, and I didn't see anywhere where I had passed a bridge (and a
bridge wasn't on the written directions either).

Does this kind of thing happen on trails marked with ribbons as well?
Yes.  But with ribbons, riders get off course when they stop paying
attention to the trail and allow themselves to be distracted by other
things (like the scenery or their riding companions), whereas when
navigating using the GPS waypoints, I found that I would get off course
when I was looking down the trail instead of looking at the device in my
hand.  BIG difference.

Unlike Bob, I do not think that marking a trail in this way is against the
AERC rules.  And I don't think that it is against the rules to require
people to have bought a GPS if they want to do your ride (after all,
nobody suggests that being required to buy and saddle and hoof protection
is against AERC rules).

I, personally, think that the GPS is just one more tool in the arsenal
that ride managers and riders can use is marking a trail.  That there are
some trails that are suitable for it, and some that are not.  And some
sections of trail that are suitable for it, and some that are not.
However, I also consider it a HUGE and not irrelevant disadvantage that
this particular way of marking the trail does require that riders be
moving forward on their horses while they are not looking where they are
going as a way of orienting themselves when they are lost.  This is most
definitely not true of looking for ribbons.  Looking for ribbons (or a
trail that will lead you to ribbons) has the exact opposite effect of
having the rider scanning the environment and looking well ahead...which
is what I tell my students that they should always be doing:  Look ahead,
look to the next fence, look down the trail, prepare your horse for the
next move, DON'T look DOWN!

Which is what any driving instructor will also tell somebody who wants to
learn to operate a car safely:  Look ahead, watch the other cars, be aware
of the pedestrians, anticipate the traffic signals.  Because that is the
safe way to handle any moving object...especially one that is moving at
high speeds and outweighs you :).

Looking down upsets the rider's balance and it upsets the horse's balance.
Most of the time, you can get away with it...as you can in a car.  But it
only takes a split second of lost attention for something unexpected to
happen and lead to disaster (and yes, many a car accident is caused by
somebody futzing around with a map and directions, which is why the
highway department provides road signs...so drivers can navigate without
looking down).

I am perfectly willing to admit that there are lots of advantages to
marking the trail with a GPS (although ride managers can provide good maps
and written directions even if they have used a different way to mark the
trail...and they could also mark the trail with GPS waypoints and not
provide the map and written directions, but to do so would be a
disaster...so one could reasonalby argue that it was the good map and
directions that got people through the XP not a GPS).

I just don't want people to forget the biggest disadvantage, which is not
that you have to buy a GPS and learn how to use it and not that they don't
operate reliably unless they have a clear signal which can fairly easily
be interfered with, but rather that using one for navigating off the back
of a horse, even after you have one and know how to use it and it is
working perfectly, is inherently dangerous.  Because it significantly
distracts you from the important business at hand...piloting the horse
through the terrain.

And even you noticed this when you were riding an excited horse (and just
allowed somebody else to navigate for you).  However, ALL horses are
excitable...at the drop of a hat (even 45 miles into a 50 mile ride).

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  Pilots are not flying IFR with handheld units...and a GPS is only as
useful as its antenna.  Oh yeah, and they are not flying through the trees
or in deep canyons (at least one hopes not).