What are you using for navigation on the trails?

[Tetten]

I've used Backcountry Navigator for years now and have been getting annoyed without being able to auto-update/upload new points from different devices, I've got points all over the place....Google Earth, my phone, my tablets, blah blah blah. So I decided to try Gaia since I've heard good things about it and how it has "passed" Backcountry navigator in almost all aspects.....

......Either I'm missing something or that is complete bullshit, Gaia GPS fucking sucks.

I'll start with the few things I've found that are actually "better" about Gaia:

It actually syncs everything between devices so you don't have a bunch of waypoints and routes all over the place, being able to research areas whether I'm at work on my phone or at home on my desktop is nice.
It looks like it has a satellite/aerial map that is *slightly* more detailed than whats available on Backcountry Navigator, this might just be my imagination though.

Now the shitty things:
The web interface for working on desktops is abysmal. Its unbelievably frustrating, every time I make a route it cycles me back through a bunch of pages and I have to reset everything to start working on a new route. Why can't I just continuously make new routes without it fucking me over and having to reset a bunch of settings to continue working?

Doesn't have Caltopo relief shading on topographical maps, I didn't think this would matter much but damn that's my favorite "map" to use while cruising. Is there a good topo map in Gaia with good shading on it somewhere I haven't found?

It might have the most detailed aerial imagery....but its completely useless if you don't have an internet connection. I try to download it but it comes back and says I can only download 1000 tiles at a time, which doesn't even make up 10% of what I want to download. On Backcountry navigator I can basically download as much as I want, I just downloaded a couple gigs of satellite imagery around Moab with no issue. Is it really this big of a PIA to download satellite/aerial imagery with Gaia or is there an easier way?

As far as I can tell, you can only download in a single quadrilateral. So if I want to download a odd area that isn't a square or a rectangle I would have to go through the download process multiple times, trying not to request too many tiles at once before it tells me "fuck no". On Backcountry navigator I can select multiple quadrilaterals that cover the specific area that I want, not a bunch of shit I don't care about wasting space on my phone.

It looks like it has a bunch of gimmicky crap....I don't care about things that I can print off or by relatively cheaply, some of which I wouldn't trust Gaia to update properly. I would only trust MVUM from the agency that stewards the land I'm on, If a ranger is ticketing me they might not give a shit that I was using Gaia and it doesn't have the latest MVUM. Trails Illustrated I buy on my own as a back up to digital maps. And on top of that, those are under the "Premium" Membership...I'm not paying for that shit when most of it seems useless.


Luckily, Backcountry Navigator is working on a "Cloud" based version that, for me, will make Gaia pointless.

So my final question...are my bitchings valid or am I overlooking a bunch of features?

 

[AssBurns]

I've used Backcountry Navigator for years now and have been getting annoyed without being able to auto-update/upload new points from different devices, I've got points all over the place....Google Earth, my phone, my tablets, blah blah blah. So I decided to try Gaia since I've heard good things about it and how it has "passed" Backcountry navigator in almost all aspects.....

......Either I'm missing something or that is complete bullshit, Gaia GPS fucking sucks.

I'll start with the few things I've found that are actually "better" about Gaia:

It actually syncs everything between devices so you don't have a bunch of waypoints and routes all over the place, being able to research areas whether I'm at work on my phone or at home on my desktop is nice.
It looks like it has a satellite/aerial map that is *slightly* more detailed than whats available on Backcountry Navigator, this might just be my imagination though.

Now the shitty things:
The web interface for working on desktops is abysmal. Its unbelievably frustrating, every time I make a route it cycles me back through a bunch of pages and I have to reset everything to start working on a new route. Why can't I just continuously make new routes without it fucking me over and having to reset a bunch of settings to continue working?

Doesn't have Caltopo relief shading on topographical maps, I didn't think this would matter much but damn that's my favorite "map" to use while cruising. Is there a good topo map in Gaia with good shading on it somewhere I haven't found?

It might have the most detailed aerial imagery....but its completely useless if you don't have an internet connection. I try to download it but it comes back and says I can only download 1000 tiles at a time, which doesn't even make up 10% of what I want to download. On Backcountry navigator I can basically download as much as I want, I just downloaded a couple gigs of satellite imagery around Moab with no issue. Is it really this big of a PIA to download satellite/aerial imagery with Gaia or is there an easier way?

As far as I can tell, you can only download in a single quadrilateral. So if I want to download a odd area that isn't a square or a rectangle I would have to go through the download process multiple times, trying not to request too many tiles at once before it tells me "fuck no". On Backcountry navigator I can select multiple quadrilaterals that cover the specific area that I want, not a bunch of shit I don't care about wasting space on my phone.

It looks like it has a bunch of gimmicky crap....I don't care about things that I can print off or by relatively cheaply, some of which I wouldn't trust Gaia to update properly. I would only trust MVUM from the agency that stewards the land I'm on, If a ranger is ticketing me they might not give a shit that I was using Gaia and it doesn't have the latest MVUM. Trails Illustrated I buy on my own as a back up to digital maps. And on top of that, those are under the "Premium" Membership...I'm not paying for that shit when most of it seems useless.


Luckily, Backcountry Navigator is working on a "Cloud" based version that, for me, will make Gaia pointless.

So my final question...are my bitchings valid or am I overlooking a bunch of features?

I've never used back country navigator since its gay and doesn't work with iOS. So my great reviews about Gaia are biased in that aspect.

Why can't I just continuously make new routes without it fucking me over and having to reset a bunch of settings to continue working?
No idea what your issue is here. I don't remember having this issue when I've made routes.

Is there a good topo map in Gaia with good shading on it somewhere I haven't found?
There is a shaded overlay that I like to use called "US Shaded Relief" It may only be in the premium version though. I use that one often.
There are some extra topo maps on the premium version that are shaded, but the "US Shaded Relief" is nice because you can layer that on any map you want.

Is it really this big of a PIA to download satellite/aerial imagery with Gaia or is there an easier way?
I think this is just a big PITA to download highest resolution in large areas. What I do is just make multiple squares to download as I need for where I'm going. I wish there was a way to download more data at once and/or download odd shapes rather than just rectangles. What I do is figure out the area I know I'll be and download the highest resolution I want for that area, then do another larger general area with a lower resolution for the areas I might end up in. This way I can download a bunch of mapping pretty easily (Besides doing it in multiple sections) and save more space on my phone. It doesn't download the same tile twice, so overlapping sections don't hurt your storage space. Also when downloading maps offline, you can download multiple layers and sections at a time and they just go into queue and will all eventually download.

EDIT: There is a way to download odd sized shapes, rather than rectangles. You gotta create a new "Area", then you choose which offline map sources you want to download for the area.

 

[4runner DOA]

I've used Backcountry Navigator for years now and have been getting annoyed without being able to auto-update/upload new points from different devices, I've got points all over the place....Google Earth, my phone, my tablets, blah blah blah. So I decided to try Gaia since I've heard good things about it and how it has "passed" Backcountry navigator in almost all aspects.....

......Either I'm missing something or that is complete bullshit, Gaia GPS fucking sucks.

I'll start with the few things I've found that are actually "better" about Gaia:

It actually syncs everything between devices so you don't have a bunch of waypoints and routes all over the place, being able to research areas whether I'm at work on my phone or at home on my desktop is nice.
It looks like it has a satellite/aerial map that is *slightly* more detailed than whats available on Backcountry Navigator, this might just be my imagination though.

Now the shitty things:
The web interface for working on desktops is abysmal. Its unbelievably frustrating, every time I make a route it cycles me back through a bunch of pages and I have to reset everything to start working on a new route. Why can't I just continuously make new routes without it fucking me over and having to reset a bunch of settings to continue working?

Doesn't have Caltopo relief shading on topographical maps, I didn't think this would matter much but damn that's my favorite "map" to use while cruising. Is there a good topo map in Gaia with good shading on it somewhere I haven't found?

It might have the most detailed aerial imagery....but its completely useless if you don't have an internet connection. I try to download it but it comes back and says I can only download 1000 tiles at a time, which doesn't even make up 10% of what I want to download. On Backcountry navigator I can basically download as much as I want, I just downloaded a couple gigs of satellite imagery around Moab with no issue. Is it really this big of a PIA to download satellite/aerial imagery with Gaia or is there an easier way?

As far as I can tell, you can only download in a single quadrilateral. So if I want to download a odd area that isn't a square or a rectangle I would have to go through the download process multiple times, trying not to request too many tiles at once before it tells me "fuck no". On Backcountry navigator I can select multiple quadrilaterals that cover the specific area that I want, not a bunch of shit I don't care about wasting space on my phone.

It looks like it has a bunch of gimmicky crap....I don't care about things that I can print off or by relatively cheaply, some of which I wouldn't trust Gaia to update properly. I would only trust MVUM from the agency that stewards the land I'm on, If a ranger is ticketing me they might not give a shit that I was using Gaia and it doesn't have the latest MVUM. Trails Illustrated I buy on my own as a back up to digital maps. And on top of that, those are under the "Premium" Membership...I'm not paying for that shit when most of it seems useless.


Luckily, Backcountry Navigator is working on a "Cloud" based version that, for me, will make Gaia pointless.

So my final question...are my bitchings valid or am I overlooking a bunch of features?

Did you miss the notification that Gaia is an Overland App now? That's why it has all the gimmicky crap.

Check out Locus Maps Pro if you're on Android. Comes with a bunch of offline USGS maps already loaded and it's fairly easy to get more maps. It works well with importing tracks and way points. I usually premake my routes in Garmin Basecamp and then import into Locus Maps so all of my tracks are localized anyway.

 

[Rockdawg84]

I'm on IOS and use Motionx GPX and have for years. works good and is pretty simple and straight forward. But they are not really updating it very much. Last update was over a year ago. I would consider something new but I don't know what I would want that it doesn't have.

 

[AssBurns]

I'm on IOS and use Motionx GPX and have for years. works good and is pretty simple and straight forward. But they are not really updating it very much. Last update was over a year ago. I would consider something new but I don't know what I would want that it doesn't have.

I used to use MotionX but it just didn't have the features I liked (Like multiple layers) and downloading tiles takes FOREVER!

 

[Rockdawg84]

I used to use MotionX but it just didn't have the features I liked (Like multiple layers) and downloading tiles takes FOREVER!

It definitely used to take forever but maybe my phone has gotten better. I just tested and was able to download the whole Florence Wheeling area for January and did it in less than a minute. But I agree it would be nice to layering maps. Though they now have almost every type of map available and it is pretty easy to move back and forth. But all of that said I am totally open to checking out a better IOS program, I will have to check out Gaia GPS and play with it.

 

[theesotericone]

Luckily, Backcountry Navigator is working on a "Cloud" based version that, for me, will make Gaia pointless.

So my final question...are my bitchings valid or am I overlooking a bunch of features?

The cloud based version is Back Country Navigator XE. Are you using the beta yet? I've had it for about 4 months now and it sucks so far compared to PRO. It's also going to be yearly subscription based. Screw that. I'll stick with Pro until it is no longer supported.

 

[Tetten]

The cloud based version is Back Country Navigator XE. Are you using the beta yet? I've had it for about 4 months now and it sucks so far compared to PRO. It's also going to be yearly subscription based. Screw that. I'll stick with Pro until it is no longer supported.

I looked around to see if I could get it through one of the crowd funding sites but couldn't find one that said "do this and you can get into the beta" couldn't figure out if the beta was closed or if you could still get in on it.

Subscriptions are annoying but I'll deal with it since they have to host your info on a website so you can access it whenever. For me, $20 a year is worth having all my routes and way points synced together on every device. As long as they have my 2 favorite maps I'll be OK with it.

 

[Airdog]

I use ViewRanger. Same setup as most as you can go online on your desktop and plan your routes then export to any other device you have and share if needed. I use a mini iPad incorporated into my Dash because my old eyes need a bigger screen.

Afton Canyon Snail trail

 

[Arcticelf]

I've had very good luck with the USGS Topo app. You can download the tiles with the pay version, so it's fully useable offline.

It's also got alot of track and waypoint features, although I don't often use them

 

[Blender]

rarely do I need to navigate, but I've cycled through a couple windows based options. Using a Surface Pro4 in the truck to run the software. Needs a USB GPS puck from global sat.

• usaphotomaps was a free option which is now dead since Microsoft pulled the map source. Was a pain in the ass to get the maps anyway.
• Delorme TopoUSA had vector maps stored locally which worked well. they were missing a lot of trails which needed to be manually entered. touch interface was poor since the software was intended to be mouse-based.
• Topofusion has a decent touch interface. Maps need to be downloaded ahead of time which is not ideal for me. Currently I'm using this software.

none of the windows based options are great. Each one has only one good feature. I refuse to swap to ios so I'll suffer with my sub par software.

 

[4runner DOA]

rarely do I need to navigate, but I've cycled through a couple windows based options. Using a Surface Pro4 in the truck to run the software. Needs a USB GPS puck from global sat.

• usaphotomaps was a free option which is now dead since Microsoft pulled the map source. Was a pain in the ass to get the maps anyway.
• Delorme TopoUSA had vector maps stored locally which worked well. they were missing a lot of trails which needed to be manually entered. touch interface was poor since the software was intended to be mouse-based.
• Topofusion has a decent touch interface. Maps need to be downloaded ahead of time which is not ideal for me. Currently I'm using this software.

none of the windows based options are great. Each one has only one good feature. I refuse to swap to ios so I'll suffer with my sub par software.

Locus maps isn't terrible on Android, but I use the calimaps overlay which really helps. Unfortunately it's only California. There was another one I used back country nav maybe? You could download maps for offline use.

 

[Blender]

Locus maps isn't terrible on Android, but I use the calimaps overlay which really helps. Unfortunately it's only California. There was another one I used back country nav maybe? You could download maps for offline use.

can't stoop as low as android even for just a tablet

 

[4runner DOA]

can't stoop as low as android even for just a tablet

Fag

 

[KevinK]

Gaia just keeps getting better and better. But I’ve been using it since around 2009 or 2010, so I’m a bit biased. I’ve tried almost every other one out there except BC Nav because they’re king fags and don’t support Fruit Phone.

They have MVUM, National Geographic, slope shading, private and public layers, tons of shit now. And the download speeds and reliability have gotten way better. Yeah, I’m on their dick. It’s alright. They’re French so it’s exotic, not gay.

 

[N2Deep]

Backcountry Nav cause kevink has a hard on for Gaya and I just don't want to see that shit. Actually once I learned BC it's very hard to try something else cause it does everything I want it to do. Routes with sat images w/topo. Even has the whole state maps as a backup. Even has an overly if blm, forest and private land at I know where I am.

 

[osidepunker]

Back Country Nav Pro. It's an android thing. Sorry iSheep.

Here's the track of the Dusy.

Here's a graph cause graphs are cool.

I've used Backcountry Navigator for years now and have been getting annoyed without being able to auto-update/upload new points from different devices, I've got points all over the place....Google Earth, my phone, my tablets, blah blah blah. So I decided to try Gaia since I've heard good things about it and how it has "passed" Backcountry navigator in almost all aspects.....

......Either I'm missing something or that is complete bullshit, Gaia GPS fucking sucks.

I'll start with the few things I've found that are actually "better" about Gaia:

It actually syncs everything between devices so you don't have a bunch of waypoints and routes all over the place, being able to research areas whether I'm at work on my phone or at home on my desktop is nice.
It looks like it has a satellite/aerial map that is *slightly* more detailed than whats available on Backcountry Navigator, this might just be my imagination though.

Now the shitty things:
The web interface for working on desktops is abysmal. Its unbelievably frustrating, every time I make a route it cycles me back through a bunch of pages and I have to reset everything to start working on a new route. Why can't I just continuously make new routes without it fucking me over and having to reset a bunch of settings to continue working?

Doesn't have Caltopo relief shading on topographical maps, I didn't think this would matter much but damn that's my favorite "map" to use while cruising. Is there a good topo map in Gaia with good shading on it somewhere I haven't found?

It might have the most detailed aerial imagery....but its completely useless if you don't have an internet connection. I try to download it but it comes back and says I can only download 1000 tiles at a time, which doesn't even make up 10% of what I want to download. On Backcountry navigator I can basically download as much as I want, I just downloaded a couple gigs of satellite imagery around Moab with no issue. Is it really this big of a PIA to download satellite/aerial imagery with Gaia or is there an easier way?

As far as I can tell, you can only download in a single quadrilateral. So if I want to download a odd area that isn't a square or a rectangle I would have to go through the download process multiple times, trying not to request too many tiles at once before it tells me "fuck no". On Backcountry navigator I can select multiple quadrilaterals that cover the specific area that I want, not a bunch of shit I don't care about wasting space on my phone.

It looks like it has a bunch of gimmicky crap....I don't care about things that I can print off or by relatively cheaply, some of which I wouldn't trust Gaia to update properly. I would only trust MVUM from the agency that stewards the land I'm on, If a ranger is ticketing me they might not give a shit that I was using Gaia and it doesn't have the latest MVUM. Trails Illustrated I buy on my own as a back up to digital maps. And on top of that, those are under the "Premium" Membership...I'm not paying for that shit when most of it seems useless.


Luckily, Backcountry Navigator is working on a "Cloud" based version that, for me, will make Gaia pointless.

So my final question...are my bitchings valid or am I overlooking a bunch of features?

Backcountry Nav cause kevink has a hard on for Gaya and I just don't want to see that shit. Actually once I learned BC it's very hard to try something else cause it does everything I want it to do. Routes with sat images w/topo. Even has the whole state maps as a backup. Even has an overly if blm, forest and private land at I know where I am.

I been using BackCountry Pro for years. N2Deep turned me on to it.

Twice now I really tried to give Gaya a chance. But it thoroughly sucks. The interface is just terrible. app and desktop.