From Trailguru

Capturing tracks using the Trailguru iPhone 3G application is dead-easy. Just start up the application, press start, do your activity, press stop, and post your track. But for some activities that are deep in the backcountry or are longer than the iPhone's battery can accommodate, it is often necessary to use a dedicated GPS. This page describes how to do this and post your track to the Trailguru site.

How to record tracks on your GPS depends on the GPS model that you have. I have a Garmin device and have added instructions below for that device's software. (If you have a different device, we'd be very happy if you added instructions for your device in a new section.)

Garmin Devices

To record tracks from a Garmin device, do the following:

1. Turn on your device and navigate to the main menu.
2. Select the Tracks icon from the main menu.
3. This will display the track log screen. Confirm that the 'On button is in the selected/down state (this means that your device will create tracks as you move). If it is not selected/down, navigate to the On button and select it.
4. Go to the button in the top right hand corner that looks like a sheet of paper and select it (this button is to just the left of the X button in the absolute right hand corner). This should display a menu that offers an option to Setup Track Log. Select this.
5. This will display another menu called Log Setup. In this menu, navigate down to the Record Method and select it. Select Distance in the displayed menu.
6. In the Log Setup menu again, navigate down one more entry to Interval and select it. This will enable you to set up an interval distance. I recommend setting this to 0.02km/0.01 miles for shorter activities (like trail running or hiking) and 0.1km/0.05 miles for long activities (like road biking or bike touring). The reason for this is that your GPS device has a limited memory -- 10,000 points in the case of the eTrex Legend so you want to match up the length of the activity with the amount of track memory available. For very long activities (a long bike touring trip for example), it might be appropriate to go above 0.1km. In mathematical terms, you basically want to select a value for this field GREATER than: (length of activity in the units you use on your GPS) / 10,000, but choose as low a number as possible because this adds additional detail to the captured GPS trail segments.

iPhone

Just download the Trailguru iPhone Application from the AppStore. Select "Settings" to enter your account information for trailguru.com. It will capture your tracks and upload them to Trailguru.

Downloading tracks from your GPS

How to download your routes also depends on the GPS model that you have. I have a Garmin device and have added instructions below for that device's software. (If you have a different device, we'd be very appreciative if you added instructions for your device in a new section.)

For supported Garmin devices, you can now post directly from your device to 'Trailguru. by downloading and installing Garmin Communicator and then pressing Find Device to find and post your track from your GPS device. For more information, press Post Track above and follow the instructions there.

Using Garmin Mapsource

Mapsource is the software that usually is bundled with a Garmin GPS device. The instructions below are for version 6.9.1 which was shipped with my device. Please edit the article if there are different directions for different versions of the software.

To download a route

1. Connect your device to the USB or Serial cable that came with it and plug it into your computer.
2. Open MapSource and then turn on your Garmin GPS device.
3. From the menu bar, select "Transfer," and then "Receive From Device..."
4. This will open a dialog box and search for your GPS. Once it is found, it will as you what you would like to receive from the device. Make sure "Tracks" is selected and then press the "Receive" button.
5. This will load this data into your current view in MapSource. If you can't see your waypoints and/or tracks on the screen, you can right click any of the listed tracks/waypoints in the list to the left and select "Show Selected Track/Waypoint On Map" to center the map appropriately.
6. Edit the GPS data to delete any sections you know to be invalid. (For example, wandering off to the bathrooms or other data that isn’t relevant.)
7. When you are happy with the data, select "File" and then "Save As..." from the top menu bar. By default, MapSource will try to save your GPS data in its proprietary GDB format (which is what you DON'T want). Change this by selecting "GPS eXchange Format(*.gpx)" in the "Save as type" drop down list box.
8. Give your file a good name like "Half Dome Hike.gpx" to make it both descriptive and unique and then press save.