John Mowery
Occupation: Retired. Was a Project Coordinator for a Consulting Mechanical Engineer and an Air Force Pilot.
Hobbies: Hiking, Biking and Computers and occasional Scuba Diving.
Location: San Diego, California.
Website: San Diego County GPS Biking & Hiking.
What kinds of GPS trips do you have on your website?
The website contains more hiking than biking excursions and contains a large portion of the Pacific Crest Trail in San Diego County which I have been trying to complete in segments. Other hike and bike excursions are in the coastal, mountain and desert areas of San Diego County. Many of the hikes are to peaks because I love the long views of eastern San Diego County.
What is the Cuyamaca Peak hike?
It is a hike to the summit of Cuyamaca Peak which is a very popular summit in east San Diego County. This ExpertGPS file routing begins at Highway 79-Cuyamaca Rancho State Park Headquarters Road parking area with hiking along dirt trails and roads 6.4 miles to the summit. Cuyamaca Peak at an elevation of 6,512 feet offers great views towards the west and a nice view of sunsets. I believe it is the second highest peak in our county.
How are you using ExpertGPS to plan and edit your trips?
Using the ExpertGPS software, I can create routes before my hike with coordinates obtained from paper or online topo maps which I can then upload to my Garmin GPS III unit. ExpertGPS shows me the leg distances and directions and the total miles before the excursion. I can use the "california.loc" file downloaded from TopoGrafix to search for waypoints within a certain distance of my proposed excursion and transfer those waypoints to my ".loc" file and to my GPS unit. That way, I don't miss any interesting points along the way like springs or mines or the names of peaks which help me keep oriented. I can also download the routes and tracks after I have hiked or biked and use topo maps to locate where I have been. ExpertGPS provides an easy and quick way to edit the waypoints and routes and to catalog the excursions for future reference. Using ExpertGPS and my GPS, I can make sure I don't get lost, which is particularly important in the desert canyons where one canyon looks like another and map and compass are of little help when the surround mountains can't be viewed. My GPS unit was a real life saver once in the badlands of the desert east of San Diego.
Have you ever used GPS in flight?
As an ex-pilot, I can see how the GPS can be handy there too. ExpertGPS can be used to preplan an air route given the proper airport and radio navaid coordinates and the preferences can be changed to knots and nautical miles. The GPS could be at least a handy backup to VOR navigation. I don't have a boat, but I am sure that ExpertGPS and a GPS would be excellent for ocean navigation. I would love to take a trip to Catalina that way.
To download the GPS data for Cuyamaca Peak or one of John's other hiking and biking excursions, visit the San Diego County GPS Biking & Hiking website.
