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“Addictions can be very, very bad but addiction itself is not bad.
It’s a case of what you’re addicted to.
You better live each day like it’s your last, ‘cos one day you’re going to be right”.
Ray Charles.
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Here is a look at just one element of that extraordinary invention, Google Earth. It’s doing it now and it will only get better over the years ahead but this invention is changing how people both plan trips to the outdoors and how they operate when they’re there.
Here’s an overview of firstly how to use it to plan a route and then transfer the data to a GPS. And then also something useful on how to maximise its capacity to gain perspective on a route that’s being planned. With thanks for this to Stephan K for his thoughts on this …….
How to use Google Dirt with a GPS:
1. Download the free version of Google Earth here
2. To view the Control Panel, click on the View tab and then Sidebar. Then in the Search box, type in the name of a place and journey of interest.
3. In the Control Panel, find My Places which is under the Places tab.
4 Right click on My Places, go to Add, then Folder and create a folder which you title something logical, it’s called Yosemite Trip in this case.
This is now the folder that will ultimately contain the details of your route, such as the track you’ve decided to follow and the Placemarks (Way Points in GPS speak) that you’ve chosen to add.
5. Go to the Task Bar at the top of your screen, click Add and then Path.
6. Now a new folder is opened, give it a suitable name, in this case Yosemite Route but do NOT click OK.
7. Instead, move this window out of the way but don't close it; you will need to click OK ONLY when you have finished marking your intended route.
8. Now start to draw your intended route by left clicking with your mouse. Practice how the cursor operates, as you can draw the route in several ways, i.e. lots of joined straight lines or keep the mouse held down and draw continuously.
9. Mark your desired route and if required, move the map by using the arrow commands on your keyboard and zoom in/out with the Google Earth commands in the top right side of the screen
10. When you have finished drawing the route, now is the time to click OK on the folder you moved to the side. You have now saved the GPS path in your main folder, in this case the Yosemite Tour folder.
11. Now find the yellow Add Placemark symbol which is located beneath and to the right of Help on the toolbar. Click it and a new window called New Placemark pops up. Title this Placemark something rational to indicate it’s the start of the route, in this case it’s titled “Start on Half Dome” and then Save it. This is one Placemark saved.
12. Repeat step 11 as many times as is logical for your particular trip. Beer Break 1 and 2, Vodka Break, Valley Floor and El Cap Base are the ones chosen in this example. You need to repeat step 11 for EACH of your Placemarks. Also be as accurate as possible where you locate them if your route is complex, i.e. use the Zoom In control to help you look carefully at the features of the route.
13. When you’ve added as many Placemarks as you need, the main folder called Yosemite Tour now contains these Placemarks and the route and it’s ready to be saved.
14. Locate your Yosemite Trip folder in the Control Panel, right click on it and then click on Save Place As. Name it appropriately and save it on your desktop.
15. This is a now saved as kml or kmz file which are the formats for Google Earth; you can open from the desktop but it is not yet in a format that can be used on your GPS.
16. Depending on the brand of your GPS, it is now necessary to convert the kml or kmz file to whatever programme your GPS uses and to do that go here
17. When you’re there, locate "Upload your file here", then find your project’s file and then select and click on Convert to convert it to the format your GPS runs and then save it on your desktop so that it’s accessible to be downloaded to your device.
Flying the route; the need for perspective.
These 3 controls on Google Earth allow you to “fly” your view of an intended route in more than just an aerial (from above as from a plane) view.
Play around with the controls until you can not just look down on the route but you can look horizontally too and also rotate the image to view it from North, East, South and West which will allow you to really get a detailed idea of your journey. Once you’ve done this investigation, THEN you should plot your route.
The following example is designed to show the limitations of only using an overhead shot to plot a route. Someone would have to be reasonably thick to make this mistake, as El Cap is massively more prominent than the wrongly chosen destination, so while it’s been done on a “grand scale” here for the instructional purpose, with smaller features, this is a very possible mistake.
The intended route begins on the top of Half Dome and finishes at the base of El Cap.
The image below is basically an arial shot of the route and is taken looking North. From this perspective the route looks accurate, with the final Placemark seemingly accurately located where you want the trip to finish, being at the foot of El Cap.
(Forget about the small problem down-climbing the 2,000’ face of Half Dome, a mere technicality).
Let’s assume you’ve only looked at the route from this perspective, picked the wrong end point by mistake and then gone ahead and plotted the route.
This next shot is looking South and this view was obtained by rotating the outer ring with the N on it on the top of the 3 Google Earth controls on the top right hand side of your screen. It’s simply the same route as before but viewed from 180 degrees differently and it still looks like the trip finishes at the base of El Cap.
In this next shot though, with the view being not just looking East but also having “flown” via the controls so that the view is far more horizontal, it’s clear that the supposed end point for the trip is no-where near the actual bottom of El Cap; it’s way up the valley and hundreds of metres away from where it should be.
To avoid this error, simply fly around your intended route from a variety of perspectives and also heights, to get as much info as you can on the terrain and then plot your route.
