(5-31-08)

April 20th:

     So it's been a little while since I've bothered to write about anything. It's not for a lack of anything to write about though, but for a while I've been more busy actually doing stuff than having enough time to sit down and write about it. So anyway, for those who don't know, Phoenix is home to the largest municipal park in the country. It's actually a mountain range that the federal government sold to Phoenix in 1920 or something to turn in to a city park.

     It's still largely untouched wilderness but there's a few roads that lead up to some good lookout points as well as the summit parking lot, which is actually a good 20 feet or so shy of the real summit. They put all the big TV and radio antennae at the summit, so you're not allowed to wander around there. Interesting thing I learned at that point however - those antennae put off enough RF interference to prevent me from using my car's keyless entry. Anyway, I also picked up a handheld GPS recently, the Garmin GPSmap 76S. In a word, it's awesome. I haven't had more fun with an electronic gadget in pretty much forever.

     So at this point you may be wondering what in the world South Mountain has to do with my GPS. Well, I so enjoyed being able to drive around and watch the GPS draw maps of where I went along with telling me the elevation I was at that it inspired me to drive around South Mountain as well as do some hiking. This wasn't entirely just to watch it draw cool maps of where I went, but I'll have to admit that if I didn't have the GPS to draw maps and plot elevation graphs and stuff while also serving as an odometer (very cool for hiking, so you can see how far you've gone) and other cool stuff like that, I probably never would have bothered going hiking or even driving up South Mountain. So.. I'll start with a sample map of two hikes I've taken so far.

     That version was done with some slick mapping software I downloaded off the internet called ExpertGPS which has the ability to overlay your GPS trail maps on actual satellite photos! In fact, you can also do the inverse and use satellite photos to create a trail on your PC and then upload it in to your GPS and follow the trail on your GPS. It definitely makes the GPS about 5 times more fun and more useful too. It can also overlay your trails on USGS Topographical maps too, but those are all way, way out of date for the Phoenix metro area, so they're not quite as cool as the satellite photos which are all from the last 10-15 years. Anyway, that one is kind of jumbled up, so here's another view zoomed in around the middle of the former image.

     The second one there is zoomed in much more and it's easier to identify the landmarks I programmed in while hiking. Like "bench" for example is a small bench to sit down on and empty all the dirt and rocks out of your shoes. Very useful to know where this is! The "highpoint" marks the highest point on the northern loop trail. The GPS even saves the elevation, which was 1690 feet at that point. For reference, the northern loop parking lot is at 1212 feet and the southern loop parking lot is at 1386 feet. The two camera icons mark spots where I took pictures. The one in the lower left is at 1758 feet and offers a pretty impressive view. For those more ambitious, the upper one marked "2-06" which designated that it's 2.06 miles from the parking lot, is at 1823 feet and offers an even more panoramic view of the north and east valley, as shown below. Here's a link to a stitched together view from that location. It represents a little over a 180 degree view extending from slightly north of directly west to slightly south of due east. Here are a few more normal pictures.

     So that's just about all I feel like writing about now except.. to mention that I went swimming last weekend. Ok, so I don't have my own pool, but there's a community pool just down the street from me. Being that it was still the middle of April, there was no one there and I had the whole pool to myself. While most people would not consider 73.5 degree water to be optimal for swimming, it's toasty warm compared to the 60-something degree Pacific and tons of people swim in the Pacific ocean. At any rate, I did a few laps of the pool and quickly remembered how much more tiring swimming is than practically any other physical activity you can do. I think I'll stick to jogging and hiking for a little while longer. It looks silly when you are determined enough to swim in cold water but are then tired after only 5 laps anyway.