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Principles of Overlanding: Navigation · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: your host Scott Brady, and for today's conversation, I spend
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: time with Chris Cordes. Chris Cordes has been a member
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of our He was a member of our team for
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: eight years. He still is in many ways. He still
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: does content for Overland Journal and the Expedition Portal, and
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: he also manages a lot of the content around on X.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So we do the deep dive on navigation. We talk
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: about not just on X We talk about all of
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the significant apps. We talk about GPS units, we talk
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: about paper maps and compass. Chris gives insights on his
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: personal kit that he uses for gathering data around the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: country for the mapping apps. I talk about the kit
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that I use on my travels around the world. We
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: really do the deep dive on navigation from a very
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: practical perspective. We talk about the things that work and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the things that don't work. So please enjoy this principles
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of overlanding on navigation and a special thanks to Rocky
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Talkies for their support of this week's podcast. Rocky Talkies
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: are backcountry radios designed by a small team in Denver.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The radios are extremely rugged, easy to use and compact,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: weighing in at just under eight ounces. They have a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: range of one to five miles in the mountains and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: up to twenty five miles line of site. The batteries
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: will last from three to five days and you can
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: recharge them easily via USBC right in the vehicle. Our
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: team uses Rocky Talkies and we also use them recently
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: at the Overland Expo. The next Overland Expo, stop into
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: our booth and say hello and check out the radios
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: for yourself, and as a listener of the Overland Journal podcast,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you can get ten percent off a pair by going
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to Rockytalkie dot com forward slash Overland Journal.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks again, Rocky Talking.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So, Chris, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: It's so good to see you.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: For those that are listening, Chris and I have worked
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: together for a very long time. You were an intern
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: from Embry Riddle and came to work at Overland International
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and what was it about eight.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Years you were there, yeah, yeah, eight nine years.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you left our team to go work
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: with on X and you've been there for now just
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: over three years, just over three years. Let's talk about
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: your role that you perform for on X being.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: A navigation company, My role has evolved a little bit
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: over the last three years. When I first came on
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: to the team, they knew that they wanted to expand
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: their guidebook content. They were calling it trail guides. They
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: wanted things that had difficulty ratings, descriptions, photos, just like
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: you'd see in a published guidebook. I came on to
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: run and grow the trail guide program, and I would
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: recruit off road enthusiasts who were really passionate about growing
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: the mapping community. We would work with them to get
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: them certified and tread lightly and then basically go and
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: map and record trails all over the country. As time
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: has gone on and that program is scale they've grown,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: I've shifted more into managing the overall content vision for
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: the off road app. So now I deal not only
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: with that specific guidebook content, but also what are the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: base trails going in, What are new layers and features
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: that we're looking at building into the content scheme that
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: will grow an overall ecosystem to make it easier to
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: navigate well.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And that's what's been so interesting about navigation. If we
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: talk about it just in the historical context. Just determining
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: how to how to figure out longitude was something that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: was a challenge for the various royal crowns around Europe
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: for a very long time, like how do you even
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: know where you're at longitudinally? And then that was finally
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: figured out, and then the next big step in navigation
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: didn't happen until GPS. Yeah, so people were they were
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: navigating by they were navigating Bisexton, they were navigating using
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: celestial navigation and the stars. But the challenge with all
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of those things is they all have an achilles heel.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: So does modern navigation. And we'll talk about that in
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a moment. But if you need celestial navigation, what happens
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: when it's cloudy or if it's a really bright moon
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and you have limited view of celestial bodies. The other
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: one is the sun is a very effective tool for navigation.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: In fact, just I was hoping I would have it
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: for this podcast and it actually arrived at the office.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: But I have a sun compass.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Now, there's some like very basic ways of getting a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: compass direction using your watch and using the sun and shadows,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: et cetera. But there's some tools that are actually very
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: efficient and they were designed to work very quickly with
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of accuracy. And it's called a sun compass,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: an actual sun compass, and I bought one that was
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: built in Michigan for the US military. I've been looking
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: for one for four years and it finally came up
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: on eBay and I actually got into this like little
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: bit of a bidding war, and I'm like, oh, hell, Like,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: there's like the one other guy in the world that's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: nerdy enough to like want this stupid sun compass. But
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: fortunately he said uncle before I did. Yeah, I bought
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: this sun compass, And where I first learned about it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: was actually Tom Shepherd. So when Tom Shepherd crossed the Sahara, like,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: what's the one constant that's really it's the sun and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: you normally drive during the day. It's much safer across
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: dunes and everything else during the day. So celestial navigation
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: really wouldn't be much of a benefit other than probably
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a calibration or a validation tool at the end of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the day to confirm your location on a map. So
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: they actually mounted these sun compasses to these forward control
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: land rovers because what's the big problem with a regular
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: magnetic compass on a vehicle oh, there's way too much
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: metal and other things exactly, so like everything has this
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Achilles heel, like on my fib or lass sailboat. Magnetic
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: compass works great, there's just not enough metal to affect
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the bearing, whereas the sun compass is this great, great
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: tool to allow for very efficient movement, and you basically
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: you have to know an approximate latitude that you're at,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and you have to know the time of the day,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and then you just make a couple of little adjustments
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: on it. And it sits on a pedestal in the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: vehicle and you can be parked in any direction, it
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, and it'll give you exactly where north is
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and then you can adjust adjust your bearing very quickly.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So it's a really clever tool. Navigation was cumbersome until
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: GPS came out. I mean I remember doing trails in
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the late eighties and you had a paper map and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: it was you would dry this, you'd reset your ODO,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and you would drive this direction you kind of knew
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: generally a compass direction, and then at point seven miles
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you made a left turn or you would bear left. Yeah,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: and that was very challenging. I made very challenging.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Even looking back at some of the better known guidebooks
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: and things. When I started off roading, and it wasn't
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: all that that would go right. I mean, it was
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: drive point four miles, turn right at the cactus with
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: the birds nesting right like, there was really difficult instructions
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: to follow. And if you got off track on a
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: longer trip, you're in one hundred and two hundred miles
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: and I could have some serious consequences for.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: You, no question, I mean. And that's also why I
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: have so much respect for like the participants in the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Rebel Rally, because they do all of that without GPS,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and they're doing it at speed. It's not a race,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: but we all know it's a race. So they're doing
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: it at speed or they're being as efficient as they
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: can with their speed, which means they're challenging work to do.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And now pretty much every device that we interact with
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: has a mechanism around it that can be connected to GPS.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Like my watch, I can bring up maps tracks, I
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: can find out what my coordinates are very easily. This
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: is the garment unit that I use in my vehicle.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It not only has GPS information on it, I can
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: communicate via GMRS it has base maps, offline maps, really
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: reliable tracking. And then of course we all the one
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: device almost all of us have with us, even if
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you don't have a watch on your wrist or you
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: have an analog watch, is your phone. I think that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that's where we're going to spend most of the conversation today.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: But I do think it's important to reinforce to people
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: that are listening that there are foundational elements of navigation,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of good navigation practices, and it does start with buying
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: paper maps for the area that you're going to. And
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: what are some of the reasons why you think or
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: your experience has shown you that it's a good idea
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to have paper maps too.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's quite a few reasons, and I'll be
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: forth right and that I do almost one hundred percent
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: of my planning and navigation digitally now like most of us, right,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: but I still carry the paper maps. And you know,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: perfect example of why I do that is actually on
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: It was two trips ago. First day of the trip,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: heading out, get on the trail, and I was wearing
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: these pants that had a side pocket that was pretty
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: far down my leg, and I slid out of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: side of my jeep and I rolled the screen of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: my phone down the door cell of the jeep and
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: I completely shattered the screen. I couldn't see anything on it,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: couldn't use it, And like great, I'm sixty miles plus
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: out through a lot of desert washes that have no
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: clear path left or right either way. Sure, you've got
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: to at least have some idea of how to get
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: in and out and back to where you need to
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: go if you break your phone, if you run out
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: of battery, if you drop it in a creeker. The
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: reliability of paper maps is really hard to be. It is,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: and that's a great story, Chris. If we think about it.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of things that are important to know
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: about GPS. There is the US based GPS system. There's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: also Glonos, which is European based, if I got that right,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I think, and so there's a couple, and then I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: think the Russians also have have a version as well.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But the one the two that we use is the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: US based GPS satellites and the European based satellites in
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: most of our units. And then they have some other
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: tools in there that help improve accuracy, like they call
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: it waas waypoint accurizing algorithms that helps give us better
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: than two meter accuracy because it's taking into consideration all
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the signal, the noise ratio loss, and it gives us
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: this very accurate location. But in the times of conflict,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: as we know in the world, conflicts can come out
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of nowhere. You could be traveling across US, across Central Asia,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: done a trip along the Soap Road, and one of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the things that I was very mindful of is that
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: at any point in time a conflict could flare up,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and it did actually in the region. And the US
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: always has the option of what they call selective availability,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: which means the tools are free until we decide that
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: we either need to significantly reduce the accuracy or remove
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: its availability entirely. In times of war, when we're out
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: there traveling, we always have to be aware that the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: entire GPS system could be deactivated. That's a possibility. The
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: other thing is these are all electronics tools.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: They all have batteries, they all have circuit boards, they
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: all have a degree of failure possibility with them. Our
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: phones are super reliable, but like you experienced, you crack
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the entire screen. It's not like the phone stopped working.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: You just couldn't see any of the information anymore.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Right, And it tends to be that the times when
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: you would need navigation most in your most dire situation
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: is also usually the worst conditions for an electronic device.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Very true. So I think back to being in Texas
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: in the summer, right and having a car breakdown way
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: out in the middle of nowhere, no air conditioning obviously
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: because it's not running, and the phone overheated because of
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: the summer conditions. Same for it gets too cold, you're
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: trying to make it out of a remote backcountry area
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: in the winter, it's raining, whatever, the phone gets wet.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: It's like, those are the conditions where you, like, you
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: really really need it to work, and they are also
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: the conditions that are least favorable to electronic device.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: So true, and that's why it's important to remember that
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: we want to have redundancy in our devices. I usually
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: have three means of navigating by GPS. I have I
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: always travel with like a traditional kind of belt and
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: suspenders Garman unit, and that's because I use that unit
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: to record a secondary track. So like, for me, the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: one thing that I've had like fairly consistent issues with
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: on the phones and the tablets, and I don't think
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it is the fault of the apps at all. I
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: think it's something that's inherent with those devices, is that
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: they will lose signal or it'll interrupt the GPS communication
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: to the app, the GPS location information to the app,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and then you'll end up with these big chunks of
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: time without any kind of recorded data. It used to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: be much worse. The more recent editions of most of
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the apps are better. I've been bummed sometimes I'll look
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: down and because I'm like, I'm also recording it as
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: a memory, right, and I'll look down and like, the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: last fifty miles or something like that, it hasn't been recording.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I like to be able to have multiple devices recording
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: a track at the same time, and that one of
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the main reasons why I have a GPS unit is
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: that it's a big screen. It's only function as navigation.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It sits up on the dash. They have better antennas
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: because they're optimized for signal to the noise ratio. I
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: have it being my primary track recording to, and then
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of offline or base map information that
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: they can carry in them and we'll talk about that more.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: But then I like to have a small iPad, which
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I also use for other things, Like I don't put
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: social media on my phone, but I keep it on
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: an iPad, so that way I can batch social media
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: time and not get so distracted by it. But it's
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a secondary means of navigation. So I'll have DAYA on
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: X other tools on there, and then I also keep
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: it on my phone if I'm out on foot. When
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: we have all of those devices, the reason why we
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: have paper maps is because again they could all fail
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: or the system could be shut down.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: So how do we mitigate that?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: How do we make that a part of our navigation
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: kind of discipline? And that means that when we take
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: natural breaks or when we come to a significant intersection
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: on a trail, break out the paper map and put
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: down the time and just a little note with a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: little X right at the location that you're at. So
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I'm having lunch, it's twelve thirty seven, and I was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: at this spring because I wanted to stop buy some water.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I put the little X there and I
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: know that that's where I was at twelve thirty seven.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And then if I come to a major intersection, I'll
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: pull out the map and this I was there at
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: two fifteen. I made a left turn at this X.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And oftentimes I'll even put like a little a little
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: turning arrow of like this is I was coming from
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: this direction and I made this turn, and I'll just
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: keep track of that throughout the trip. That I learned
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: from sailing, that's how you triangulate and you record your
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: path as you need to do that as as like
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: good discipline around sailing, because again it's a really big
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: problem if your electronics stopped working in your sailing. You
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: need to know where you've come from, the direction you've
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: been traveling, your last known point, and you need to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: have that recorded on your on your charts. But and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: same for well, you are a you are a pilot,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: so like they don't let you just rely entirely on electronics.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: No, No, In fact, it's funny when we were first
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: starting this conversation, we were talking about and of GPS.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: The first planes I flew were all six pack steam gages, right,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: so we didn't have GPS units in them, and we
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: were regardless of even if you do, you've got to
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: learn how to fly by paper maps, and by doing
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: dead reckoning and by watching your surroundings and understanding and
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: being able to say, okay, I know where that mountain is,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: therefore I am here.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Is that called VFR visual flight rules?
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the first kind of category that you get
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: into when you become a private pilot is using VFR,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: only you have to have a whole nother rating to
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: get into your instrument flight roles, which you still use
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: your instruments in VFR, but your primary means of navigation
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: is looking around.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Didn't they They had for the longest time. They had
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: these white They were like antennas and don't think they
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: put out a signal or something like that. Yeah, so
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: are those.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: So they're called vrs VR. Yeah. So they're very high
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: frequency omnidirectional range And essentially what those are doing is
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: emitting a high frequency signal that you can tune into
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: with an aircraft and be able to position where that
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: is coming from. So when you start tuning into multiple
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: of them, you can cross paths and try agil to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: triangulate your position. Got it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, There's so much that's come out of sailing and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: flying that I think has helped overlanders, and we just
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: don't know it.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. But it's funny because that was for me
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a turning point with GPS and like my fascination with mapping,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Like I always like maps, but I was not someone
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: who was really obsessive over diving in and understanding like
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: the navigational minutia of every single type of map and
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: the different ways to do it. But when we got
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: GPS in the planes and I saw how much easier
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: it was to navigate just using a GPS, say for it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean your awareness of your position became
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: second nature. And then what you've enabled you to do
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: was put your awareness onto the other things that were
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: going on in the aircraft, right, And so for me,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: that was a click of this is going to make
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: such a big difference. When we nail this in their
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: industries like overlanding and off roading, you are now able
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: to enjoy your experience so much more because there's not
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: that second thought constantly running of Hey I need to check,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I need to check, I need to check on this map.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Because you can see exactly where you are, you need
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: to verify it. Like you said, you should always be
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: looking around, You should always be looking at that map
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: to verify your position, and make sure that you have
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: a backup. But it just makes it a little bit
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: easier and more enjoyable. And like so many of the
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: tools today, whether it's vehicles, recovery gear, it makes it
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: more accessible for the majority of the population to step
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: into that and overcome that barrier to get into it
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: and experience it for.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Themselves, I mean, and it just adds to the richness
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: of it. And then making sure that you're communicating that
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: to the people that you travel with. I think that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: there's a couple rules that I like to include is
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: work with paper maps, record your location, pay attention to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: your surroundings. Look around. I mean this is also just
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the part of the joy of traveling, but really looking
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: around and you're like, ah, there's that windmill over here,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: or here is this very distinct peak off in the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: distance with a very unique shape. When I went through
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: this wash and I made a left turn in the wash,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: that was where that wind mill was. So you're starting
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to make these little mental notes that helped to piece together.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Because human beings are very good at navigating inherently, we
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: would have had to have been even hundreds of years ago,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the average human being would not have had any of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: those tools, and they can. Human beings that are still
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: navigating that way, some of the original kind of Aboriginal tribes.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: It is shocking how precise they are able to navigate
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: their surroundings, exactly where the water is, because.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Your life depended on upon it.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So it really is remembering that we have all those tools,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but we got to keep them sharp, we got to
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: use them, We got to pay attention to our surroundings.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And then we also want to be talking with the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: people in the car about where we're going, why we're
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: turning here, because what like, let's say you're out with
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: your family. Your husband, he's kind of a nerdy guy,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't really like overlanding, but you're into it and you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: do all the navigation, and he's just he's kind of
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: playing on his phone and he's not really paying attention
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to what's going on. The kids don't know what's going on.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: And if you don't keep him informed, what happens if
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you get sick, like really sick, and you're not able
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to navigate, you come down with an illness of flu,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: stomach bug, food poisoning, any of those things. He's not
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: been paying attention to what's going on now. He needs
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: to navigate you guys out of there. So making it
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: part of the fun of the family where everybody in
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the vehicle understands kind of how the tools work. Make
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: one of the kids responsible for navigating for fifteen minutes
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: or twenty minutes and paying attention to where we're at. Actually,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: my nephew Brady is helping record this podcast today. And
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: many years ago, we went out with Brady and his
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: brother Ethan, and we were I made him. We walked
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: away from camp. I don't know how far we walked,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: maybe half a mile, and I said, all right, Ethan, get.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Us back to camp.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: He figured it out, he really did, because I think
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: kids are naturally curious, so he kind of remembered this
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: log that we stepped over, and those things kind of
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: gave them confidence that we were on the right track back.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: But getting your family involved with making those navigation decisions
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and using those tools, I think is really important. Yeah,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and it also gives them skills for life. I think
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: that that's another really important part of it. And then
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: having multiple applications that are on your device, they're loaded
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: with offline maps. That way, if you have because things
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: apps do get corrupt and they can go down, or
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you thought you downloaded the offline maps and maybe there's
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: something corrupt in the file. I've had all of those
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: things go wrong. Or the worst one seems to be
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: when an app has just a little bit of data connection. Yeah,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: so it's now trying to hit the web, but it
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: actually can't. So if your device does that, remember to
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: go into airplane mode. It doesn't shut off your GPS,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: but at least it tells the app I need to
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: be an offline mode. Have you had that happen to Oh? Yeah.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: We call it edge of service.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: It's a very well known issue, and it's actually it's
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: a phone provider issue more than a app issue. It's
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: not an app issue.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And it's funny right on the edge of the cell coverage.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: The thing with the tracks that you were mentioned earlier
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: with that pause, same thing. They there's all these algorithms
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: that are built into phones now to either optimize your
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: battery life by killing some of the stuff that's going
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: on in the background, and that's why you lose tracks.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: To this edge of service thing where it's saying I
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: know that you have offline mapps, but I think that
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: you want the most current thing that you can get,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to try to pull from cell service
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: even though there's not anything that's right.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: So if the phone thinks it might have just like
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a thread of service, but it's not enough to actually
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: download the app.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: And I've had I've had it hang on me.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: When I'm out hiking and I'm using one of the apps,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and I'm just like shoot, you know. But then I realized,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: if I go into a plane mode and I restart
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the app, then the app's like, no problem, I got
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you covered right because it has no like there's no
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: information coming from the cell connection because the cell connection
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: is turned off, but the GPS isn't turned off. So
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I think that those are really important things, Like if
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: you're the kind of natural leader of the overlaying group
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and you got five vehicles behind you after lunch sometime,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: just be like, who here thinks that they could get
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: us back to the road, And how would you do
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: that if you didn't, if you didn't have GPS. Let
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: somebody else go up into the front and get out
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of the dust a little bit and navigate to the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: next spot, Like Okay, we're going to go to these
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: waypoints and make it fun, make it part of the team,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: learning and growing and developing, so that everybody's building their
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: skills around navigation, because it is a real concerned It
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: is a real issue, and we've seen it time and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: time again. There's some very well documented issues where entire
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: families have perished.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Because then, I'm not trying to be sensational around that,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: it's just the truth.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: They're either their navigation device or if they're using Google
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Maps or they're using Apple Maps, and it just sends
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: them down the wrong path and then now they're at elevation,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: starts to snow, you're stuck. Those things happen with shocking frequency.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So just making sure that we're not trusting the device entirely, it.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Is something that can help you appreciate the area that
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: you're into. If the entire family or entire group is
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: looking at the map understanding what's around them, actually it's
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: taking a break from whatever they're looking at in their car.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know that half the people at the time,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: if they're passengers, they're on their phone in the car,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: right and so having that break to look outside and
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: understand what's there and then be able to reference that
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: back it helps them engage in it helps them remember
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: the experience and enjoy it a little bit more. And
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I do think it can help you discover new things
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: as well. I mean, most of the time, if you're
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: looking at a map trying to plan a trip, you're
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: not down into the finest detail of every cross track.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: But when you're driving through the desert and you see
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: a beautiful two tracks stretching off to one side, you
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: might be curious what's out there, and you're able to
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: look at that map then and say, oh, you know,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: there's something that might be interesting out here. We're going
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: to go check this out.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And an old ruin, or possibly there's some a native
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: side or some petriclypts or something like that. And a
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: special thanks to on X off Road for helping to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: support this week's podcast. Going further on your adventures is
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: about having the right tools. The on X off Road
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: apps Intuitive maps make it easy to find trails and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: disperse camping, and their offline maps give you full GPS
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: navigation capability without cell coverage. I'm also really excited about
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: their new route builder for planning and sharing custom trips.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It's got a snap to trail tool where you can
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: just drop points where you want to go, and a
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: route automatically connects to the closest road or trail.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: You can build, save and ad routes to folders and
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: share your entire trip with your buddies. You can find
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: out more information on on xmaps dot com. Also find
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: their apps in the Apple Store or whatever other device
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: that you use. Thanks again on X.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that I now that we've
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: kind of talked a little bit about what my kind
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of navigation tools are, let's talk about what you have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: kind of in your kit or what you typically use.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: And then also if you use professional tools like I
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: know when you did some work with Hama, you know
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: they had tremble units and higher accuracy GPS units for
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: gathering track data, is that anything that you still use
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: or what does your navigation kit look like? Yeah, so
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm going to be a little bit
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: boring here, That's okay.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: So my navigational kit is pretty condensed. I essentially either
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: use a phone or an iPad pro, one of the
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: two loaded up with on X and then I will
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: pair that with an old school garment in reach one
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: that does have a screen on it. Specifically for that
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: backup capacity as a secondary electron device in case anything
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: ever went wrong. It's also the same use unit that
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I bring when I'm like bike packing or backpacking ornything
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: like that. So of course I always carry the paper
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: map backup of whatever state I'm in, like an atlas
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: or guesstteer, or if there's a specific map as well.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: So a good example up in the up in Michigan,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: there's a great little map of this peninsula that I
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: think there's probably last printed in the seventies, but it's
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: really detailed on all of the stuff that's there, like
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: past even what any GPS I found has. So I'll
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: just carry that around in my back pocket just as
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: the little bonus of finding all the historical sites.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And I like having I really do like having a
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: couple of different paper maps. I do like the gazetteers
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: because they give a really broad picture and they also
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: allow for that serendipity of like, oh I've got an
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: extra two days, like where do.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: I want to go?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And you can kind of give it gives that sense
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of place because the maps are so big. But I really,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I really like what National Geographic has done with their
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: maps over the last ten years. They're just really useful
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: adventure maps. I think they even call them adventure maps.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: But you can find one for Baja soor you can
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: find one for Baja Norte, and they actually recently came
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: out with a Baja gazetteer, which is a really big deal.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And then you can find one for like Zion or
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: for some or Moab area. So I really think that
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: those adventure maps, like if you can only have one map,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: they're probably the best because they have a lot of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the information that we want to like these are where
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: these points of interests are and everything else like that.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: So I find that that's really useful. But then the gazetteers,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I think they give you a good sense of place,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and then if you're really trying to dig into an area,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: then having a seven and a half minute topo quad
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But when it comes to map layers on
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: these devices, that's one of the things that we can
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: start to talk specifically about apps.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I use the Heema.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Explorer app for quite some time and I actually have
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: most of my kind of trips around the world in
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that one. And interestingly, preparing for this podcast, I was like,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I should go on there and download every
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: single one of my GPS tracks because you kind of
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: get into this use you get used to the cloud
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: being the cloud and things not going wrong. But I'm like,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that's like all of my memories as far as tracks,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to look and see where was that
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: one lake that I went to, and I could pull
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: up the track. So I actually downloaded all of my
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: tracks onto a hard drive and I made a couple
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: extra copies, and then I put another set of copies.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Of it up into Google Drive.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: So for those that are listening, don't just have your
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: all of your experiences, your tracks saved in one location.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Download those things, save them offline in a drive, also
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: save them in the cloud. I feel like you're not
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: really backed up until you got three copies of something,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: So it felt really good for me to do that.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Then I re uploaded them onto Gaya, which is the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: same platform. The Hema Explorer app and Gaya are the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: same platform. The Hema Explorer app just hasn't had as
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: many updates as Gaya has, so Guya has a lot
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of new functionality. But when it comes to map layers,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that's when things get really really interesting around apps, and
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: that's something that just simply a regular GPS doesn't have
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the luxury of doing efficiently. You can connect a garment
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: to your computer. You can download different map layers. Within
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: there's some map layers available. You can get updates to
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: map layers, updates to road information for turn by turn navigation,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: and then some updates to satellite maps or bringing down
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a series of satellite maps. The one thing that I
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: also use on Garman would be like, I'm getting ready
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to do this big trip across Africa, and the very
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: best navigation tool for Africa is Tracks for Africa. There's
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: nothing that's even close. Anybody who tells you otherwise hasn't
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: really done it. I mean, it's the reality is is
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: like that is what everybody uses because it has the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: most user curated information on the continent. So like, if
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you want to find this cool track that goes through
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: this part of the Okavanga or whatever, you're going to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: use Tracks for Africa for that. And you can either
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: have that as an app on your phone, which has
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: improved with time, or you can have it as a
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: micro SD card that you install on your garment device.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: For Africa, it's very specific for Australia it's very specific.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: People use HEMA maps and people use the HEMA Full
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Drive app in Australia, which is very updated. It's a
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: different app than their HEMA Explorer app and it's got
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: tons of high quality map layers. You've traveled across Australia
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: using those tools.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: It's very detail. It's awesome.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I've traveled across Australia using those tools. They're really really powerful.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: But then when it comes to on X, for example,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you have a hybrid layer, which is where you see
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: some road like numbers, other information road names layered over satellite.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Basically a combination of the topo map and the satellite app.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: And then there's there's topo specific which that can be
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a real advantage. Sometimes satellite images are very noisy, they like,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: especially if there's a lot of trees, or there's just
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of contrast on the on the base image
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and not a lot of visual trails that you can
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: see a lot of times satellite is actually not useful
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: at all, or a hybrid isn't really useful at all.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: That's where you want to just go with a basic
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: topo map, and the ONYX topo map is really useful
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: for me. And what I use it for is to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: find trails, and I think that that is the most
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: powerful tool that I have found on X has many
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: powerful tools, but the most powerful tool for me is
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: two things finding current trail data. Like I'm testing a
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: vehicle and I'm like, I want to find a moderate
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: trail to take this Grand Cherokee trail hawk on. This
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: has just happened to me within the last couple of months.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I was in North Phoenix, had a very limited amount
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: of time. I open up on X and there were
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: trails everywhere within a very short period of time. I
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: can click on the trail and it will actually tell
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: me what the difficulty rating is, and that is the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: key to it. It's what the other apps don't have.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: There's no way to know you can find that there's
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: a trail there, right, you have no way to know
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: how difficult it is for this really nice, very capable
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Grand Cherokee. But it's not a rock crawler, it's not
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a rock buggy, you know, it's a stock vehicle. So
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: finding something that was moderate or like a six out
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: of ten scale, it was like, ah, this is cool,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: this is perfect, and it gave information on what permits
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: were required, it gave all kinds of information in the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: trail data. So that's very powerful on on X.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: In my mind.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: But the second thing that I think really separates on X,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of from their foundation as a hunting app,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is letting you know what, who owns the land. When
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I say own, there's a lot of the land in
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the United States we own is citizens of the US.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: These are public lands, but public lands have different regulations
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: associated with it. And I use this all the time.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: In fact, I was doing a trip between Wickenberg and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Lake Pleasant going back through this kind of Castle Hot
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Springs area, and you are in and out of BLM
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: National Forest and State trust land and private land the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: entire time. Like I wouldn't know the difference unless you
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: were looking to add a map with the lines. It
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: is a patchwork of land. If you're driving through State
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: trust land and there's not a gate where it's posted,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: you can drive through it. You can transit the State
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: trust land. You can't camp there without a permit. And
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: so if the State Trust enforcement officer comes up and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you're camping out on State trust land and you don't
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: have a State Trust land permit, you've got a big fine.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: You can also end up on someone's private property and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: people can be really unhappy about folks driving or camping
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: on private property. And then there's different durations of stay
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: depending upon which whichever agency is involved. Like a national
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: forest is two weeks fourteen days. I don't actually know
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: what it is for BLM.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know that. I don't know BLM's
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: limiting there. I just know as fourteen days for a
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: service for a SERVICELM is less concerned.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think probably it was crazy. I'm going through
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: a patchwork of land. But this was the cool thing
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: is I was. I was getting closer to the end
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of the trail and there was a ton of private land,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and I found this one little square of BLM that
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: came down and intersected with the trail, and sure enough
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: there was a little sidetrack that went up to a
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: little camp spot, and I had total confidence that I
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: was camping on BLM land. I wasn't on someone's property.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I was surrounded by a private property just about, but
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I was able to find that one little spot for camping.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: So that's a really powerful tool within on X.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when Brittany and I were traveling in the van.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: We used it all the time specifically for that. I
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: mean you could be especially at places like Montana where
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: we were left side of the road is private rights,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: the road is public, and so it just you would
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: need to know who owns what land in order to
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: be able to make sure you were camping legally. Yeah,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: it was really easy to be wrong about it without
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: the app.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And it's also it just helps around conversations because it's
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: interesting a lot of times locals there's like local lore
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of what something means. And you can have a local
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: come up and say, hey, you're not allowed to camp
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: here and just say, look, I'm happy to move if
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I need to, but this is this is how I
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: came to the decision that it was okay for me
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to camp here. And you can show them the map
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and a lot of times will be like, oh, I
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: didn't know that right now. You always want to be
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: respectful and it's you're better off moving than creating a conflict,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: because that's how conflict creates is created around multi use.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And then that's same thing with trail designations too. So
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: that's another thing that's really helpful with on X is
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: it shows you what the what the trail usage is.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: If you've got if you're on a trail that is
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: actually fifty two inch wide limit or motorcycle only, and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: you're on there with a full drive and someone says, hey,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be here, you can look at the map
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and be like, oh, shoot, I shouldn't be here. So
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: these are really and you can turn on and off
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: those layers on on X which I also found to
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: be very useful. So I would make sure to always
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: turn off like motorcycle and fifty two inch trails. That way,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't accidentally end up on one of them, just
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: because I'm following track, right, And.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: That's one of the advantages now of GPS apps, right, Like,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: all of that stuff becomes easier to differentiate. If you
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: have a paper map and you're looking at it and saying, here,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I want to go up into this forest and explore,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: it's way more difficult to discern the difference between those
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: different width of trails if they have it at all. Yeah,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: And so with the GPS capacity, I mean, you're able
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: to just get so much more information.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: You really are. And since we're talking about navigation in general,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: one of the things that can be helpful. This is
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a little pro tip for those that are listening. When
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you're in the National Forest and you see a National
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Forest trail sign and it says trail seventy two, if
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: there's two digits in the trail, this is a major
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: thoroughfare in the forest, which means that it's going to
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: most likely continue on until it comes in contact with
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: another major road, oftentimes a paved road or some exit
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: to an interstate or a highway. These are two digit
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: forest roads are major thoroughfares. Three digits are going to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: be less used. Four digits can will oftentimes be jeep
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: tracks dead ends. They're going to be very much like
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a tertiary road, a more challenging road. You're more likely
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: to find it to be a challenging road, which could
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: be what you're looking for. And then oftentimes there'll be
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a letter associated with it. So you could be on
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: seventy two and you see, ah, here's one that says
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: seventy two A or seventy two B. It just means
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: it's going to go back around and it'll connect back
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: up with the main route. This is an alternate route
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to seventy two. So when you see the more numbers
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: you see on the forest road, the more of a
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: secondary track or a backcountry track.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: That will be.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: So it's a really easy way to know, like, should
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I really be taking my X five down this trail
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: with four digits?
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Probably not that that Infinity comes to mind, Yes, exactly, Yeah, yeah,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: I forgot that you were there.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were just a funny side story, but we
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: were out testing a vehicle. I can't even remember what
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: vehicle we were testing, but we were. Joe Baccall was there,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: and you were there. We were all I mean, I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: think even Matt Scott was there. We were all testing
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: some off road vehicle on our test track in the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: digitalth Yet and here comes this like low slung, really
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: nice white Infinity And as soon as this woman sees us,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: she starts screaming and she like throws the car in park.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: And we didn't know what happened. I mean, I was
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I thought she had had something really serious happen. And
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: she came running up like she was so grateful to
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: see us, and she had just come down like one
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: of the most challenging tracks in the area in this
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: crossover suv. I mean, I give her a lot of credit.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Oh Man, Yeah, there's no way that. You know, I
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: don't know what the undercarriage looked like, but the car
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't watted up. I mean she somehow got it down there,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and then she comes to the ditch of death. No problem,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: we'll get it through there, and we like spotted somebody else.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I think Joe hopped in, you know, so we have
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: professional driver, you know, rally champion, you know, hop in
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: the driver's seat. We spot them through. Yeah, but she
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: if she had known that being on a trail that
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: is like you know, seven six y three is probably
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: not a good idea.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she would have been able to say, you know,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: this probably isn't the track that I think she was
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: looking for a new build community, that's right, and this
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: is probably not the track that's going to lead you there.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: And it was literally either Apple Maps or Google Maps
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: is what center there. It wasn't like she was just
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: making poor choices. That's where the navigation app sent her.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: So making that's another great qualifier of like, this is
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: why we got to validate where we're going, and we
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: got to make sure that we we have some set
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: candary means of navigation or at least challenge the thought
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of where this is taking us. When it comes to
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: map layers, those I think are really powerful tools within
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: on X. The other one that I use a lot
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: is Gaya, and it has a huge suite of layers
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: available to it, and some of them can be stacked
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: on top of each other to show additional detail. Like
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: one of the ones that I like to do is
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: is just the basic Guya topo layer and then layer
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: on top of it one of the trails layers, like
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the mountain bike trail layer or the hiking trail layers,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: cause I like to do I like to get a
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: lot of miles in during the week with hiking. It
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: allows me to layer over a good base map with
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a bunch of specific to what my interest is, which
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: is either mountain biking or hiking, and I can layer
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: over these specific trails and I find that very useful.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: But the one that I found recently that I think
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: is the most fun is they actually have started to
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: make available historic topo maps. So there's one from I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: think it's maybe nineteen oh four or something like that,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: so it's pre like in the sixties and seventies, the
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: USGS had this huge project and that's where we ended
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: up with most of the of the seven and a
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: half minute topo quads that we all know today. That's
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: where most of those things came out of, was this
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: huge geological survey that happened across the entire country. But
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: there were significant geological surveys that were done before that,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: and in different in different detail and different scale, probably
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: also in different degrees of skill. But these old topo
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: maps are just awesome because they're hand drawn and they
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: also have tons of cartographers notes. So like that's the
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: thing that we lose with modern toppo layers is all
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of the cartographer's notes are gone, Like yes, we know
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: that there's a spring there, Yes we know that there's
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: a trail there, there's upside, like you know what the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: trail number is now and oftentimes you wouldn't know that.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: But with these really old topo maps, it'll say like
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: like native ruins, like handwritten on the map, or it'll
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: say native art, or it'll say battle site, it'll or
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: it'll say some obscure name of a town you'd never
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: heard of, and like at the time that was maybe
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the ruins of that town, and now you you would
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: go there and you wouldn't see it at all, but
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: you could you could look around and find that stuff.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's it's really interesting. You know, a lot
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: of that stuff was purposefully lost. So as you as
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: you start to talk to managing agencies and cartographers and
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: the people who assemble a lot of these base maps,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: there's a clear decision made at a certain point that
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: an area needs to not be shown on a map,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: and that's especially for ruins and areas that are susceptible
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: to bag.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Well. I think that's important to talk about right now.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: That's one of the things that you and I both
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: wanted to make a part of this conversation, which is
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the responsible sharing of information. With modern navigation tools, more
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and more people feel confident to go in the back country,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: which is the positive thing, but the downside of it
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: is now more and more people are going into the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: back country with a lot of confidence that can be
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: sometimes over confidence. But then the other downside to it,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: in addition to the safety concern, is that a lot
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: of these very remote, obscure things or places can get
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: love to death. So we have to be very mindful
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: of Like if you're traveling across the Mojave Road and
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: you want to geotag that it's probably fine. There are
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: eight billion Overlanders that have gone over the Mohave Road,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: so we know that that place has been literally loved
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: to death, and there are needs. There does need to
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: be places that there's general knowledge about. It makes it
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: very accessible for to go. They have a great experience.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: There's other travelers frequently on the route that can provide
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: them with assistance. There's upsides to that too, there being
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: these areas of concentrated use. But if you're traveling in
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: somewhere in southern Utah and you come across like this
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: old mining village that's like been abandoned, it's in perfect
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: condition and there's still the books on the shelves and
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, you probably don't want to tell anybody
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, just make it be your own experience,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: because if you come into a place and it looks
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: in your mind untouched or are unmolested, remember that and
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: don't tell others about it.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Actively.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Don't put it up on Instagram of like this is
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the most amazing waterfall I've ever seen in my life
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: or whatever, or like look at all these arrowheads I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: just found. You never want to put any of that
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: stuff out there.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: But I think that's the key difference though, is like
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: that the geotagging and the social media, it separates the context,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: I think in some ways. So when like this was
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: a big thing, when I originally went to work it ONEX,
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: I had a lot of heartache over you know, should
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: we be publishing sharing these tracks or should we not be?
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: Like are we leading to places being loved to death?
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: And I had a lot of conversations with people who
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: worked at the Forest Service, people that try lightly just
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: trying to understand the scope of this. And what I
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: found through that process in the years since working in
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: the industry is that it's actually not the publishing on
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: the map that's a problem. That's actually helpful. The first
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: principle of leaving no traces, plan head and prepare. You're
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: supposed to be studying maps, you're supposed to be understand
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: where you're going. The problem really comes in when people
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: do that geotag right, you know, coming to mind, there
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: was that mirrorish sculpture that was out in the desert
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: recently and it was posted they were not clear directions.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: They was really hyped up and everybody wanted to go
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: out there, and what happens is people are going off trail,
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: going down the wrong route, they're going over closed roads,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: and it becomes a big issue when these people lose
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: the context of here's how you get to the place
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: and appreciate it, versus something being published on a map.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: That's something that you have to like, actually take the
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: time to open that up, become a member, or use
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: it for free or whatever. But you log into that
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: and you're able to look at it with the context
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: of what are the roads that I can use to
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: get here, what is the legal correct path of travel,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: and then also hopefully if it's being done right, what
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: are the considerations for trending lightly and preserving this place
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: as well?
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: And I also think that the more trails that are available,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the more you distribute the use. And it also helps
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: to keep trails open. So if everybody does only the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Mojave Road and they don't and they don't do other
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: trails in the area, a lot of times it was
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: just get closed from lack of use. The agencies will
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: say people aren't using it, or it's going back to nature,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: we're going to close it down. So I think I
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: like the fact that there are there is so much
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: information out there, and it allows for distributed use, distributed
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: multi use across I mean because of on X and
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: other devices like that or other apps like that, I've
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: found new trails that I've been able to really enjoy.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: I love them.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: They are trails that I go back to. But then
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: I'm really really careful if I'm in an area that's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: pristine or a small a small campsite where maybe two
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: or three vehicles could fit. Those are the things you
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: really got to be careful about posting on the Internet
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: or posting on social media, because unfortunately, most groups are
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: bigger than that, and we've seen a lot of campsite expansion.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of abuse on the trails because
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of these massive groups that are traveling across a route
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and they're expanding campsites. So if you're in that place
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: that looks like, ah, this is never looks untouched, it
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: looks pristine, you maybe don't want to share that one well,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and you'll notice That's why an on X we want
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: don't have like.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: User generated camp sites that are published in places, because
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: we don't want that problem where somebody posts a site
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: and you know, one who knows if that's legal or not,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: but then you're driving traffic to that same place over
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: and over again and so letting people go to other areas.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: And it's the same with trails, Like we publish trails
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: that are legal paths of travel to just s burst
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: that impact, like you said, but we're also very careful
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: about the way that we manage that. We don't want
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: to publish tracts that shouldn't be legal or aren't legal
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: to travel. It's why all of our content it's one
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: published by people who we have asked to go through
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: the tread lightly certifications, we've approved them, and then we
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: are having our geospation engineers review all of that trail
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: content that gets submitted before it goes into the app
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: to make sure Yeah, these are sustainable trails that are
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: legal to travel, that are completely going to be okay
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: as like state owned whatever paths of travel.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: It just makes it It enables you to disperse that impact,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: discover new places without having that overcrowding and damage.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just want to be we want to take
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: responsibility of protecting those places for future generations, and the
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: way that we do that is to minimize our own impact,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: take responsibility for our own actions. Shift into full drive
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: before you think you need it, as soon as you
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: leave a hardened surface, shift into full drive if you
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: as soon as you go into a two track or
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: a more challenging track, go into four low lock your
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: rear differential before you go on a challenging climb, so
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you limit wheel spin or make sure that you're in
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the right track control mode. Air down your tires to
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: minimize impact. These are all things that are really important
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: for us keeping trails open for future generations, and it
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: is our responsibility. It is not something that we can shirk.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: If we are choosing to recreate on public land in
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the back country, we're taking responsibility for other recreationists that
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: may want to use it in the future. So we're
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: responsible for taking out not only our own trash, but
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: any trash that we can.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Take out with us.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: If we can take it out, take it out, take
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: out human waste if you can. If you're on a motorcycle,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of course that's impossible, but if you're in a big camper,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: you know, take your stuff out. And it's also important
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: that we communicate.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Those education stewardship efforts to other people, like we have
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: to initiate these newcomers in the industry, which there are
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: a lot of these days, to understand that they need
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: to take care of these places as well. ANNEX right
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: now is doing a stewardship campaign where we've basically, through
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of data and surveys, realized that there is
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: a huge gap in the education efforts of all these
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: people that are coming to the industry. They see a
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: really cool ad from whatever company of this vehicle going
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: off road and going sideways or splashing through a creek,
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: and that is their perception of what is an acceptable
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: form of recreation. And it's easy for people who have
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: been in this a long time to say, these newcomers,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: these jerks, you know, they're just trashing what we work
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: so hard to protect and they just don't know any different.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: I mean all of us were at that point at
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: some point absolutely right, and someone oh, I absolutely did.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: But someone came to us at some point to say, hey,
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: this is actually not how you should be doing this.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: This is how you take care of these places. And
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: it's a hard conversation to have and you may not
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: always be received well. People tend to be defensive when
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: you have that conversation. But the next time they go out,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: I promise that they're going to remember that conversation. Yeah,
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: I mean just in the moment maybe.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I mean that's why tread Lightly does such a good
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: job through their Master Trainer program of teaching you how
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: to have those conversations and asking questions instead of instead
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: of like virtue signaling on someone that's unsuspecting or maybe
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: ignorant on the subject, asking questions of like is this
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a trail? Yeah, and they'll be like, did you just
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: asked them a question like is that that's that's crazy?
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Is that a trail actually that you're on right now?
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: That's what I'll do. I'll just ask them questions as
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: opposed to telling them that they're doing something and they'll
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, well, you know, actually I don't even
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: know if that's a trail or not. They'll be like, well, yeah,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: but like, don't we need to stay on trails so
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: that they don't close these areas down? Yes, just ask
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: questions and it results in a different approach. They don't
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: feel like they're being attacked. They're just there's like more
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: of a conversation going on. And sometimes of course they
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: don't care, but at least you made the effort, which
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I think is a key part of it. So let's
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: let's move back to trip planning using navigation tools. So
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: how do you normally plan a trip? And you've done
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: some big ones, so let's let's go with Let's start
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: off with the weekend trip, and then we can layer
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: on top of that what you may do for bigger
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: adventures like your stuff across Australia and everything else. But
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: how would you normally plan for a two or three
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: day weekend overland trip.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: I've actually started normally with what my goals are right So,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: being in Phoenix in the summer right now, it's baking
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: hot out here. I'm either looking for a swimming hole
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: if I'm going nearby, or I'm looking for somewhere with
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: elevation to get out of the heat and go somewhere
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: with cooler temperatures. So the first thing that I'm doing
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: is I'm just looking at a broad view of the map.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: I open up on X, I look for the water spots,
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: I look for the high elevation mountains, and then from
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: there I'm going to narrow in on Okay, what are
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: the trails out there? And I think that that's one
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: of the major things that has changed my perspective now
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: with on X versus how I used to plan is
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: I can immediately look at a trail dense area and say,
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: this is a good possibility that there's a lot of
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: places to explore here, and it significantly narrows my search down.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Then I'll go in and look at Okay, what are
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: the trails, how difficult are they? Start dropping pins and
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: just kind of looking for the other areas around that
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: I want to experience.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: One quick question on difficulty. I noticed that like when
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: you are in on X, it will say like a
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: six out of ten or a seven.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Out of ten.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Where would you put a stock Jeep Wrangler rubicon in
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: that number scale?
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, just so people have like.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: A point of reference, because I think I think it's
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: difficult to know, like because I'll normally take like a
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Jeep Grand Cherokee Trail Hawk, I would take it on
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: a six.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that that's an important distinction though,
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Like I think it really depends on your comfort level
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: and experienced level as right, And you know, you can
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: take a stock rubicon to a lot of places. I
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: mean we have wheeled stock rubicons through Moab on trails
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: that realistically a lot of people would say we have
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: no business on it. And if you are comfortable with
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: the vehicle and you're okay with off camber and things,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: I mean you could take a stock rubicon on the
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: six easy. Now we're seven or an eight even correct,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: Now the caveat there is going to be how old
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: is your rubicon? Because the amount of armor, like the sliders,
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: the skin plays, those kinds of things start to come
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: into question with clearance, So like the clearance in your
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: tire size and your armor are going to be those
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: questions right there right and so like when you say stock,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: a new rubicon has some of that stuff coming in display,
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: and you are a larger tire from the factory with
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: more clearance. So I would say, like a new rubicam,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: sure that's that five six out of ten? You should
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: be challenged but comfortable. And all of our ratings are
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: actually based on obstacles, not on necessarily like the vehicles
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: that can go on the You know, we as off
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: eraders tend to think about things a's like what vehicle
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: could make it here? But we try to measure based
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: on like how tall is that obstacle? How deep is
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: that rut? How soft is the sand, and like those
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: different aspects that are more measurable than just like what
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: vehicle should be able to drive this trip? Yeah, that's helpful.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: So it seems to be that like, once you get
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: up to about a three, you need to have something
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: with full drive. If you're at a two or three,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: some crossovers can do that. Once you get up to
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: the four five zone, you need to have something with
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: low range with a little bit of clearance. Once you
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: get into that five six you need to have something
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: with advanced tracks control. Once you get up to that
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: six seven, you're up into the thirty two thirty three
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: inch tie up tall tires with at least one locking differential.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: And then once you gut up into the seven or eight,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: then you're usually lightly modified or you're a jeep Wrangler Rubicon,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: or you're a Bronco on thirty fives.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: I would even say, based on some of our ratings,
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: if you're in a seven or eight, you should be
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: probably having a substantial build. I mean you should be
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: thirty five plus on the tires armor. There are some
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: pretty significant seven eights in our rating scales, So when
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: you're in nine and tens, you're in buggies, h I
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: would put it. So that's good to know, and then
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: people can.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Kind of plan for like, for example, there's a great book,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: the back Country Adventure Guides, and you know there are
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: these huge thick volumes of trails and what they would
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: put a ten at would be like the ten would
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: be the jeep Wrangler rubicon, like the most capable stock
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: vehicle would be a ten for them. And so it
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: does vary. That's why it's really good to know what
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the difficulty, how it translates. So knowing that a nine
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: or a ten on the on X is a fully built,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: most likely buggy, we're a really really competent driver with
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: a with a door slammer, rubicon or something like that.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, I will say in my LJ on thirty
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: threes three inches of lift without sliders, I'm probably talking
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: out it A five or six is why I would
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: want to go with that. G Yeah, that's good, that's
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: good to know.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Sorry to interrupt there, but that was an important distinction
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: because when we're planning, that's part of what we're planning,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: is when we're looking at the trails, we need to
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: know how difficult is this, so we don't get ourselves
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: into trouble well.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: And it can also make a big difference on the
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: experience you're looking to have. You know, if Brittany and
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: I are just wanting to go out and go camping
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: and have a relaxing weekend, I'm probably not going to
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: choose the sixth trail out of ten, right like, I'm
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: probably going to look for that one to three, go
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: somewhere like the Mogion and just run the rim road
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: and find a beautiful campsite. But with that being said,
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: we have also said, you know, we specifically want to
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: be at this lakeside camp spot. And when you start
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: looking at the tracks, they are harder, and there's sections
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: of harder trails to get in there. And that's one
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: of the interesting things is when you can see all
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: those ratings, you can start piecing together the easiest way
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: to get to that spare.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah sure, oh that's interesting, or the hardest way if
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: that's what you want, or if that's what you want, Okay,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: So you'll look at that stuff in advance. And then normally,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: what do you then start to do around preparing for
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: printed maps and for app map layers? What do you
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: start to do to make sure that when you're still
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: in Wi Fi, you're still in the air conditioning here
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: And Gilbert, what are you doing to get ready to go?
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: I mean for paper maps, I'm really just grabbing the
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: map book, making myself familiar with the area that I'm going,
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: just double checking that it's all on that book for
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: a statewide at list, safe that you're going to be there,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: and then I'm downloading offline maps on the app. One
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: of the interesting things about on X that I think
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: is a it's kind of a nice thing to have,
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: and it's a little bit misunderstood, is that we don't
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: necessarily deal in layers like a lot of other apps do.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: So we have tons and tons of different layers, but
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: we crush them all down into three base mapps. So
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: our satellite and our topo and our hybrid that you
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: mentioned earlier actually have a ton of different layers baked
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: into them so that when you go to download offline,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: you don't accidentally miss the information you need and it's
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: all just already right at your fingertips. So the public lands,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: the private lands, the MVUM information and the trail data,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: the weather data, the fire data, all of these different
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: things that you would normally need to tap on on
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: other apps and then download, and as you know, like
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: sometimes you miss some they're already baked in. So all
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: that we have to do when we prep is just
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: say what size map and save and so like we
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: get the satellite topo and hybrid. If you download anything,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: well any of the layers and it's just the detail
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: that you get whatever thing. So all of that resolutions, yeah,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: the degree of resolution, thank you. Cool. So even if
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: you download the low resolution, all of your recreation points,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: all of your trail data, all of that stuff comes
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: in exactly the same as that's your base information plus
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: the maps in addition to that.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: And it will that will also bring down the satellite
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: images as well. Yeah, yeah, because satellite images can be
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: very very useful. Yes, they can be, especially if if
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: it if it looks like why does this trail because
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I found I found this, It shows this one dead
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: ends here, and then this one dead ends here, And
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes you can zoom in enough and see like, oh
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: it's because there's a gate here, or because there's a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: canyon between the two, or it looks like this is
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: a very well traveled road and it's just an error.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: On the map, and so having those satellite images I
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: think are pretty helpful. They do give you some context also,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: unlike what is the terrain like, is it all treed?
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Is there an is that campsite open?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Is it like got a big view over? You know,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: there's because there's so many beautiful views in the in
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: the Southwest.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: And that is actually part of my planning process as well.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: So once I start getting into an area and figuring
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: out this is the region I want to be in,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: I will go into the three D modes and start
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: laying out, Okay, what area is going to have the
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: best viewpoints, what campsites are really where I want to
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: be And you could do that traditionally with Toto maps
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: right using the lines on the map to understand the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: actual elevation of the area. Once you have the three
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: D that you can mess around with on the computer,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: it just becomes so much fasting. It's pretty sweet.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty insane how good it looks now like
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: you can really get your head wrapped around what the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: relief is, how much elevation there is.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I should also say that I do most
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: of my planning for larger trips on the computer. I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: do sometimes on my phone or my iPad just if
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: I feel like it, but I normally do it on
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: the big screen on the computer, and I'll download all
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: my offline map shapes ahead of time, and then that way,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: when I'm ready to do the trip, I literally just
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: open up the phone and I tap the download ERROS
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: and it just loads.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Had mentioned earlier that you use an iPad pro. Is
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: there a reason why you use an iPad pro? Is
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: there something there has there been a learning from that.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: The reason I used an iPad pro is mostly because
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I traveled with it as a soul photo editing computer
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: and navigation for gout. So when I have a trip
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: that I'm packing a light for, it was kind of
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: the platform to do everything. Yeah, because it's like a
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: multi use tool. Correct.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: And it's important for people to know that nearly all
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: phones have GPS built in. Not all phones do, so
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: just know that there are there are some phones that
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: do not, but any smartphone is going to have GPS
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: built in. Not every tablet has GPS built in. So
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: if you buy an iPad that is not a cellular
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: enabled iPad, you do not have GPS, and you can.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: Buy an iPad that cellular enabled without having a cellular plans,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: but it'll still have the GPS that's right.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to activate the cellular plan and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: have that addition expense every month. But you do want
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: to buy the unit that has a cellular capability because
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: then that guarantees that you're going to have the GPS
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: chipset built in. And when it comes to other devices,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Android devices, make sure you do the research that it
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: actually has a built in physical GPS chipset because otherwise,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: as soon as you get out of Wi Fi, you're
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: not going to have that ability to actively track your
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: on your base maps and on your apps.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: So it's just really important to do that, all right.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: So then you've kind of done all of your planning
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: and you're going to leave with your iPad pro your phone.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: You have a garment handheld that you also use for
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: backpacking and packing and other things like that. Do you
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: bring a magnetic compass along to I.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: Do, so. I have an emergency kit like a go
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: bag basically that does have a compass in it. I
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: have to say I've never broken it out in actual
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: trund but you haven't had too Yeah. Yeah, Fortunately for me.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's fun to break it out and triangulate your position.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: You like I recognize what that peak is and then
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: and then validate it on with like see how close
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: you are using your GPS, and like I'm always off
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: like not a lot, Like sometimes sometimes I'm off a lot,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and like where I completely screwed it up, Like I
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: thought it was one peak and it wasn't. But then
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of times I'm pretty close, and it
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: like it helps keep those skills fresh, which I think
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: is pretty fun. Learning how to triangulate on a map
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: is a very important skill and it's a fun thing
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: to learn, and it's a fun I think you're like
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: those of your traveling with your kids and your spouse.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: I think people tend to really dig into that. They
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: kind of dig the idea that they can take this
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: paper map and a compass line of site and that
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: you can triangulate your position on the paper.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: I think it's part of what attracts us to this
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: interest hobby, whatever you call it, of being out in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: the wilderness, off roading, overlanding. I mean, it's that self sufficiency.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: It's the ability to go out and be beyond just
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: techology and the standard every day, right, it's just people
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: enjoy it. Yeah, those skulls for sure.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're now you're on your trip. What
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: are you what are you most often looking at for?
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Like what device you typically uses your primary source of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: information while you're traveling? Uh?
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: One hundred percent of the time is just my phone
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: on a mount on the windstream? Is you like I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: just use a magmount? Yeah? Yeah, I just haven't really
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: found a good one yet.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Like there's some of them that clip on, like on
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the motorcycle, because you got you don't want to You
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: don't want to use a magnetic one ever on a motorcycle,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: even when they tell you it's not going to fall off.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: You know, one hundred hundred miles an hour on the GS,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: phones go flying.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: My first, uh, my first gravel bike race, I had
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: a phone mount on my handlebars because I was not
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: familiar with the road and it was like it was
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: not huge. It was a forty mile run and it
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: was like, I want to make sure they get this right.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: It was within the first half mile I hit some
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: corregations and the thing snapped off my phone, my phone
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: into a ditch, and I was like, oh, this is
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: a great start. So I'm on the side of the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: road trying to find my phone while everyone else is
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: riding by me. Yeah, I've got really selective about my
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: mouth's up.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll learned that the hard way, totally. Yeah, absolutely, Okay,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: So you typically use your phone, and I think I
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: do too. I mean, I've learned to not I have
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: gotten away from having it on the dash anymore because
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: of car Play up until it was about a year
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and a half ago, is when on X became available
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: for car play. Gaya was available a little bit before that.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: On X, I think is really kind of leapfrogged Gaya
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: with car Play. There's a lot more interaction on the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: app on the screen of the vehicle, and I like
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: to just have it running car play, and It'll either
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: be Gaya or on X, depending on what I'm trying
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: to do, And sometimes I'll switch back and forth between
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: the two just to make sure that the tracks are recording,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: and then I'll normally have a garment just running up
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: on the dash, but I like to have those extra
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: layers sometimes.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: So yeah, when I had CarPlay, like in the Mercedes,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: that's pretty consistently what I did in the old jeep
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: with my engine radio. I don't have CarPlay, so I'll
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: just run. Yeah, I'll just run the phone in the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: corner of the of the windscreen and works great. Yeah,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: just following either the route I laid out or whatever
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: trail I decided to go down.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: And there's been some recent updates on so in Guaya,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: if you want to build a route, it's basically taking
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: you like as the crow flies to a point, it
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: just shows a line that you need to be traveling
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: approximately on.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: There's not any robust turn by turn in Gya.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: Now there is, certainly if you're using Apple Maps or
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: if you're using Google Maps, they generally have turn by
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: turn directions and a lot of times it does work
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: off road. It's surprising, but it will. It is also
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I would say it's probably twenty twenty five percent of
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the time it is going to send you astray. So
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: like you need to have of validate these turns every
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: time you come to a major intersection. Use a couple
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: other apps. Check on your paper map because it doesn't
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: always get it right, and none of them really do.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: No, none of them them always and that includes so
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: our route builder tool has some of the same things right,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: Like we we do have the advantage that we have
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: spent the time to build in all of our trail
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: data into this so it understands what the trails are
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: and it can you can tap point A and point
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: B where you want to go, and it's going to
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: draw a route in between using our trail data. But
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: to your point earlier, forest roads are not all the same.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: Trails are not all the same. The path on the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: left could be down f R eleven and the path
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: on the right is down FR eight hundred and seventy four,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: and that path to the right, if that technically looks shorter,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: you may end up having the route down there and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: you'll have a much more interesting and longer drive than
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: if you just took the left rout sure, So that
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: is where that verification comes in, of checking those road names,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: going down on thisline imagery, looking at where you're going,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: and then also just being aware of your surroundings. At
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, this technology all makes it
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: much easier to access to that country, but it's important
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: to still have the skills to be able to go
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: in and have that smart to say, okay, this is
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: the route I should be taking or this is really
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: where I want to go, and.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: I think we're both on the same page of that.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: And for those that are listening, just really make sure
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: that we're not just like if you were flying a plane,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't trust that navigation solely. There's instruments, there's visual
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: flight rules, there's all kinds of things that we're using
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: to validate the direction that maybe this device is telling
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: us or this route is telling us. So we want
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: to be we want to have the least confidence and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to come out on a limb here.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: We want to have the least confidence in Apple Maps.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: We want to have our slightly better than that is
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: going to be Google Maps because they do have a
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: lot more tools and they have a lot more users,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: so they're constantly adding to the fidelity of their system
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: because people are driving these routes and they're recording that
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: information on us. So we want to use Google Maps
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: with a little bit more confidence. And then after that
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: we want to start looking at some of these phone
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: level apps. In my experience, turn by Turn off Road.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: You're going to do really well with on X and
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: you're going to do really well with Garman. Those two
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: both work really well, because they have a lot of
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: just very clean off road map data. But we always
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: want to be super careful about just going turn by
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: turn when we're in the back country. It can really
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: lead us astray. So we want to be validating at
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: every major intersection. Is this really where we want to go?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: And I would also say, truly understand where the data
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: is coming from from whatever app you choose to use.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of applications out there that are somebody
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: built a basic infrastructure and they say, all right, I'm
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: going to put it out to the world. You guys
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: fill it in with whatever. All Trails is a great
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: example of that. And there's a lot of data in
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: All Trails, and there's some fantastic gems, but at the
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: same time, there's also some things that are going to
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: get you into trouble. We have been very in technitions change.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Flooding happens, we've had heavy rain in Arizona. It's it's
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: up the difficulty of most trails in Arizona in the
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: last few years.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: And that's interesting that you say that, because I think
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: I mentioned to you earlier. One of the changes that
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: we've made in the app recently is introducing these trail
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: reports and user reports. So while we don't allow just
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: anyone to publish data to our map, you have to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: be someone who's certified to proved to do that, and
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: we have to review the data. We will allow someone
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: running those trails to make a report to say, hey,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: this is either closed, or it's washed out, or it's
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: way more difficult. Now it's supposed to be super useful.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: User curated information is key, you know, and forms are
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: powerful for that. If you go on Expedition Portal and
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: you look up the trail that you want to drive
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of times will be a lot of communications
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: around that recently. But then also things like the user
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: contributed information on on X is a really powerful tool
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: of knowing. Like, you know, two weeks ago someone just
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: drove this trail and they said that it was washed out.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: Here, right, there have been some significant changes. I know,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: we ran a trail out by Samarra Lake two weeks
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: ago and we were going out there. It was supposed
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: to be a pretty easy trail, weren't expecting much and
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: there was a user report that we got that basically
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: said towards the end of this trail there was a
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: significant ditch there, I almost rolled my vehicle, and so
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: we went into it being well aware of that, and
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: sure enough when we got there, I mean, it was
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: a significant washout and it was still passable. It was adventurous,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: but if we hadn't known that and I had gone
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: out in the sprinter van, for example, we would have
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: definitely had to turn back.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Are there any other recommend things learnings that you've had,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: Chris over the last because I mean some of the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: stuff that you did with us with Hima, these were
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: huge trips, very very long. I mean you were on
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: the road for months at a time collecting mapping information.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: What are some tips that you would like to share
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: with the listener around planning and navigation.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: That's a good one, I would say, first and foremost,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: don't plan too much. And I know that sounds a
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: little contrary coming from someone who works for planning and
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: mapping company. I think when you want to truly plan
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: an adventure, you need to start with a broad view
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: of what you want to achieve from the trip and
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: set those goals. Have some basic plans, but you don't
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: always need to have the most specific detailed route planned
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: out to every single day, every single mile. You can
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: give yourself and should give yourself the flexibility to say
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: we have other options, and we have other trails. The
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: other thing I would say is that if you aren't
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: leaving with at least a plan B, you're probably not
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: leaving with a plan A that's actually legitimate, So you
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: should have an alternative. Things go wrong, trails are closed.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever done a trip where we
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: didn't run into some sort of closure or obstacle or
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: something that didn't require us to rot. And for that
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: same purpose, the offline maps need to be thought of
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: the same way. I know that we've had a lot
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: of people that talk about, well, it'd be great to
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: be able to download just the trail offline, and that
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: does work, But as soon as there's a problem along
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: the way, you need to see what other roads are
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: in the region that get you either where you need
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: to go or back out for where you came from.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: So you should be thinking about a trip as not
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: just my intended path, but if something at any point
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: in this trip goes wrong, what are the alternates? And
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: do I have all of that offline for me and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: my experience.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: The most important information I would share the tip that
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I would share is because I don't overplan. I do
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: allow for a lot of serendipity. You do end up
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: at that beautiful campsite in the Okabanga Delta, and you
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: spend another week there, longer than you plan to. But
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: what I feel is the most important is to have
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: three navigation tools. So you have three devices. And for me,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: it's an iPad, it's my phone, which is an iPhone,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: and it's a garment unit. My watch actually does have
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: some basic navigation functions, but I don't view that as necessary.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: But I make sure that I have three devices, and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: I make sure that they are all updated while I'm
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: still on Wi Fi. All of the offline maps are validated,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: that they have downloaded completely. These are the reason why
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: I'm saying all these things is I've screwed every single
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: one of them up. I didn't bring enough batteries. This
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: is a long time ago when certain certain GPS units
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: still required double A batteries. I didn't bring enough batteries,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: or I didn't make sure that things were charging, or
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: I forgot the mount, or something got damaged or whatever.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: Make sure you have that redundancy. Make sure that all
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the offline maps you've validated that they're there, expand your
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: area slightly larger than what you think you need, and
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: have a couple different layers available, have a couple different
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: apps available on each device that are up to date.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: The apps have been updated, You've tested them when you're
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: in your home in the air conditioning, in the Wi
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: Fi to make sure that they're working.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: And shut all the Wi Fi and cell service off
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: to make sure that that offline mapp looks.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, test all that stuff before you leave, so that
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: way you know for sure that all those things are working.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Because that's where I've really run into the most trouble
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: is assuming like it worked the last time, or I'm
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: just just take that extra few minutes to make sure
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: that you've got multiple devices, that they're all working properly,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: all the offline maps are working properly, all the updates
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: to the device are done, all the updates to the
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: apps are done, and that because like in Gaya, it
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: will because somebody's map layers are huge. And if you
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: don't like actually click on the little spinning circle and
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: see which apps, which map layers have been downloaded. Are
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: they complete? Because some of them can be two gigs.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: If you're not careful, especially the satellite ones, and if
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: you just walk out the door when you're on Wi Fi,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: it won't automatically switch over to cellular because it doesn't
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: want to burn your cellular plan. So you have to
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: make sure that you've you know, download using cellular data
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: is activated if you want it to, or that it's
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: been fully downloaded. Make sure that that entire process has
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: been done.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: The other thing I would say is that you need
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: to do a little bit more research onto the area
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: or going to check for road closures and conditions. So right, well,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: it's fun when like the conditions are a little challenging,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: but if you drive six hours and the trail is closed,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: you're going to be a little disappointed.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: And that has happened a lot. There's been a lot
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: of flooding. There are a lot of roads that are
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: literally gone, and.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: You know, people will rely on mvuns and that's the truth.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: And even that's not so like when you look at
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: the order of things, like we all know that Force
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: Service doesn't have the resources they need a lot of
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: the times, right, so they are required to post closures
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: somehow publicly, and so what happens is most of the
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: time they will post hey, these roads are closed on
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: like a forest order's web page somewhere, and then if
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: they have the time, then they'll up date the MVUN
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: paper maps. And then if they have the time to
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: do that, maybe eventually they'll update the digital maps. But
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: some of these digital maps don't get updated for five
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: ten years sometimes, and so that digital information is what
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: gets disseminated to all of these app companies. So if
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: you have an mvm map, it's no guarantee that that
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: digital MVN reflects the paper MVWN, and there's no guarantee
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: that that reflects the actual closures it's current.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: Chris, thank you so much for the time today. This
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: has been such an important conversation. You know, dust off
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: that compass, grab those paper maps out of the bookshelf
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: and bring them with you. Bring your little trail guides
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: with you too. It's amazing the things that you can
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: still find in those great books. Have multiple devices that
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: you've tested before you leave so you've got redundancy, and
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: then teach the people that are with you how to
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: use them. I think that those are the key takeaways
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: for me from the conversation. You know, it's a huge
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: world out there, and it is amazing how how much
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: information that there is to navigate by if we.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: Just find it and use it. Yeah. Absolutely, and you
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: got to get that next generation inspired to keep exploring
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: preserving these.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: Places right well, and speaking of that, I'd like to
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: thank my nephew, Brady Albert for helping me to produce
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm on uncle duty for the next five days,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: so we're going to go do some exploring that's going
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: to require some.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: Navigation, so looking forward to that.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Love it all right, Thank you, Chris, appreciate it.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: Bud, thanks, and we
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: next time.