Workshop:Organizing Snowshoe Tours
Do you want to enjoy exploring Washington's Cascades after the snow falls? Organizing tours to new destinations is a great way to renew friendships and make new friends while exploring hills where the summer trails are hidden and and the possibilities for exploring anywhere are endless. With safety in numbers, organizing snowshoe tours gets you out in the snow to enjoy new experiences with friends.
Workshop Outline
- Teams made up of 5-6 members plus 1-2 coaches develop lists of potential tours.Then, teams choose one tour and plan it in detail.
- Teams draw the route of their tour onto a map. Printed maps of the area can be used. If a computer and printer are available, the route can be drawn on a software map and printed, Again, if computer software and GPS units or phones are on hand, the route can be sent to transferred or sent to GPSr units and phones.
- Mountaineers web site. The Tour is entered into the snowshoe tours section of Mountaineers.org.
- Navigation techniques are reviewed with emphasis on winter travel. UTM coordinates are read and plotted. Compass declination is set. GPS units are checked for snowshoeing use. Coordinates are obtained from GPSr units and phone apps for use in locating points of interest on paper maps. (A common use of GPS technology)
- GPS map(s) are loaded into GPS units. Phones are loaded with selected maps. Points of Interest files are loaded into GPS and phones. Mountain peaks and SnoParks are searched for and displayed.
- Team practices use of GPS feature locators on GPSr and phones. Estimating is done for bearing and distance.
- Team takes navigation on a practice tour. A map is made and a complex route is entered into GPS units. Route includes a 100 meter section where two paths are identical. This allows for estimates of accuracy with GLONASS (Russian satellite system) on and off. Speeds and distances are measured with GPSr as speedometers and odometers.
- Team members and coaches share impressions of the tasks.
Materials
Small notebook (Rite in the Rain notebooks will resist moisture), pencil (will write in the rain), and a compass with adjustable declination. Optional equipment: altimeter, GPSr (Global Positioning System Receiver), phone GPS app.
Each team should have Internet access through laptop or smartphone. Laptop should have Garmin BaseCamp (free software) installed for making maps.
Preparation
Review navigation, map making, snowshoe route options before arriving at the workshop. The workshop is the place to get answers to questions.
Reviewing navigation. Check the declination on your compass. It is about 16 degrees east near Seattle, Washington State in 2015. A simple compass without a declination correction would be sufficient to get you headed back to your car. A printed map would be a worthy companion. It should have a compass correction on it along with information about lakes, roads, ridges, cliffs, and generally useful features to seek or avoid. An altimeter is the next most useful device to have. In mountains, elevation is another landmark for locating your position. Finally, a GPS capability, assuming the GPS device shows location on a topographic map, is valuable in many ways.
While 16 degrees is a substantial correction, even an uncorrected compass will provide the N. S. E. W direction needed to arrive at a known road. In Washington, the mountain roads generally run east and west, so all you might need to get back to civilization is a simple compass that points generally north. With a map, cliff bands, gullies, streams, ponds and other obstacles could be avoided. So, carry a map and a magnetic compass. They cannot run out of power.
For maps, many snowshoe routes lead from snow parks that have maps posted on Washington State parks web sites and even on boards at the start of the tour where you can take a photo of one. If you have a phone GPS app or a handheld GPS, be sure to load it with a map of your tour area and fresh batteries along with an extra set. Some people like to snowshoe without maps thinking that they enjoy the mystery and the thrill of suspense. Please save the thrills for private, non-Mountaineer, trips. The consequences of an injury in February can be far more serious than one in June. P.S.: leave your trip plan with someone who will care about you. In winter, the only person who is likely to be out on the snow is you. Solitude is an attraction of winter travel, but it might not be healthy to be hurt, soaking wet, very cold, alone and not a soul has a clue to your whereabouts.
If you have a GPSr (optional) or phone GPS app (also optional), consider setting it up for snowshoeing prior to the workshop. Go to www.summitpyramid.com for information.
Questions about setup can be resolved in the workshop.
For a GPSr, obtain a microSD card with 4 or more gigabytes of capacity. Format it and install the Garmin folders from www.summitpyramid.com. These folders contain the Washington topographic map, Northwest Trails map, and POP (Points of Interest) files for Washington summits and SnoParks. These maps and points make a Garmin GPSr much more useful. They will work in all Garmin units that take memory cards, including Nüvi automobile units.Map files are available on www.GPSFileDepot.com, the source for the summitpyramid maps. GPS phone users will be able to download USGS or OpenCycle maps from within the different apps.
Workshop
Mountaineer tours and this workshop share a feature: meeting new people. The first task is making it easy to connect faces with names. Start by forming groups of about 5 people. Each introduces him/her self. Every one writes down all the names, phone numbers, emails, and whatever else is needed to make it easy to contact each other. Someone is bound to have a smartphone. Take at least one selfie of the group. Mountaineer snowshoe tours often have people who are new to each other. Expanding snowshoe contacts is a major advantage to Mountaineer tours where you are guaranteed t meet new pop. Remembering names is a significant safety factor The trip leader has several ways to make networking easier. Tours often start from a central meeting place that is warm and out of the weather. In the Snoqualmie Pass area, the traveler's Rest or the Pancake House offer places where everyone on the tour can introduce themselves. These are good places to jot down This can be emailed after the tour.names and contact information in a small notebook you can keep at hand while on the tour. Another way the tour leader can facilitate name recall is to use a camera to record a group selfie movie with audio that can be shared with the group.. Each person says their name, and perhaps other information, as the camera pans the group. On the tour, the trip leader can take every opportunity to use everyone's name. Of course, anyone had the right to ask any other person for their name at any time.
Task 1: Select 5 Tours
Where are good snowshoe tours? This is an opportunity to make a wish list. Check the resources below to identify 5 possible tours. Team members share the pros and cons among the team. If team members nd coach have done tours, share favorites.
- Mountaineers
- Mountaineers Tour List
- Mountaineers Web Site
- Seattle Snowshoe Committee
- Mountaineers Web Site
- Government
- WA State SnoParks, Skiing
- WA State SnoParks Snowmobiling
- US Forest Service
- Mt. Rainier
- WA State SnoParks Snowmobiling
- Guide Books
- Snowshoe Routes: Washington
- Trip Reports
- Washington Trails
- NW Hikers
- SummitPost
- NW Hikers
- Location of tour (what is new, familiar, interesting, has best conditions)
- Automobile access to tour starting point (distance of drive, restrictions on entry, permits required, condition of roads)
- Aerobic qualities: (route distance, elevation gain, difficulty of route finding, difficulty of terrain)
- Technical challenge level (easy, easy plus, moderate, strenuous)
- Exposure to hazards
Difficulty levels defined by the Mountaineers are: Easy, Easy Plus, Moderate, Strenuous
Aerobic can include distance, elevation gain, and pace for Low, Moderate, and High aerobic activity
Coach: Contribute your trip experience. Answer questions about pace of tours, avoiding hazards, what difficulty levels mean.
| Tour | Area | Map | Distance | Aerobic | Difficulty | Hazards |
Task 2: Plan a Tour: Finding Maps, Using GPS Software, Printing Tour Maps
Among the team, select one tour within a 90 minute drive of Seattle. Plan it as if the team will actually do the tour.
If it is located from a SnoPark, locate that SnoPark on the Washington State Parks web site (http://www.parks.wa.gov/303/Sno-Parks). Check the maps for that park. Usually, snowshoe routes are indicated. Are any of these interesting?
If a ski area or mountain pass is the location of the tour, obtain the USGS map of the area ( http://store.usgs.gov) and compare it to guides in books and Internet sites. Download a USGS map to the laptop. The PDF file consists of many layers. Select the layer that looks like a standard topographic map. A 1 km UTM grid should be printed over the map. The maps will be very large when printed at full resolution. Printing in a smaller size will compress features making details difficult to see. In Garmin BaseCamp software, the topographic map can be chosen to include only the area of the tour. While the overprinted grid is not 1 km in size, the readability of the map and the ease of making it, make BaseCamp a viable avenue to a quick map.
In BaseCamp, versus a USGS map, the proposed route of the tour can be sketched out, saved, and shared. An elevation profile can be printed, as well. There are web sites where USGS maps can be defined for any tour. However, the print resolution is so poor that the web site maps are frustrating to use. BaseCamp is currently not only capable of high quality maps with waypoints and routes, but it is also free – a Garmin GPS is not required to obtain and use it.
The next job is obtaining UTM coordinates for the trailhead. Also, because automobile GPS units use only latitude and longitude, obtain those coordinates as well so that drivers can enter them to navigate to the most obscure trailhead.
Paper maps are large and work without batteries. The Mountaineers tour list includes the names of USGS maps. All the USGS maps are now free from this U.S. government site: https://store.usgs.gov. Selecting maps begins with selecting maps by clicking on a graphic map On store.usgs.gov The most recent USGS maps are overprinted with 1 km UTM (Universal Trans Mercator) grids. These are useful for getting coordinates from the map. They are also handy for estimating distance and time needed to reach a destination. Used to estimate travel time, locate GPS waypoints, and provide coordinates for search and rescue. Other map products designed for Washington State recreation are the Green Trails series. These are larger in scale, 1:64500, than USGS 1:24000 scale maps. Green Trails use 2 km grids.
A 1000 meter grid, called the UTM (Universal Trans Mercator) grid, is printed on top of all good maps used for outdoor recreation. Since snowshoers travel, on flat snow, at about 20 minutes per kilometer, the grid makes time management a snap. The grid squares are numbered for locating things like mountains and injured snowshoers. You can start thinking metric by specifying metric units for distance in your GPS or phone app. American resistance to use of the metric system began when George Washington proposed it in 1790. With the practical and safety advantages in using metric maps, it is time for you to use metric units in snowshoeing. When you travel beyond America’s borders, you will feel right at home.
Free software called BaseCamp is available for printing topographic maps from a PC or a Mac. Get it from Garmin.com. In the workshop, this software will be used to print maps. Green Trails maps come with 2,000 meter grids. BaseCamp, free mapping software provided by the Garmin company, can print maps but the UTM grid varies with the zoom level of the map and the whim of the Garmin software.
- USGS maps
free USGS maps from web site
National Geographic Topos (PC and Mac)
DeLorme Topo (PC only)
OpenCycleMaps (free topo maps world wide)
GaiaGPS (iPhone and Android opencycle and USGS maps, etc.)
Map use is reviewed in the group with emphasis on using maps with compass and GPS. Each participant will create a list of at least 5 potential tours. The facilitator will work with the group to select one trip for the group to use in planning a tour. The Internet will be used to research recent tour reports, Mountaineer resources, weather, and snow conditions, The USGS map store will be used to locate, download, and print a topographic map of the selected tour area.
What to Bring: pocket notebook and pen. Notebook computer with navigation software installed, if you have one. Outdoor GPS if you have one. Smartphone GPS if you have one with a GPS ready mapping app and offline maps of the Washington Cascades. Snowshoe, cross country ski or snowmobile guidebooks if you already have one or more. Snowshoe Routes: Washington, Dan Nelson, is the main guidebook to have. The Mountaineers Books site provides a downloadable pdf version at a discount. Call the clubhouse to get the current discount code.
Task 3: All the Tour Route in GPSr. Send route by email. Visualize route in Google Earth.
GPS units need to be configured for winter navigation. A tutorial on this is HERE.
There are many models of GPS units in common use. It is not possible here to provide detailed instructions on GPS configuration for all the different units. This workshop is a good place for teams to share insights on how to set up and use their GPS receivers and/or GPS apps on smartphones.
Important in snowshoeing are three functions: map, trip data, track management. Garmin "etrex" models have a page button that can switch between just these three pages. This is a simple way to access a lot of information. Most handheld GPS can show some trip data, like speed and distance, on the map. However, the map is small and is crowded with the extra data. So, the three page solution is best. Smartphone apps have a map with some trip data available on it. They also have other pages with more information. There may be a menu page that switches to a variety of functions.
On all GPS and phone apps a locator icon on the map can be moved around the map to show the bearing and distance to any point. This is very useful in answering route finding questions like: “How far is it back to the car?”
Task 4: Scenario tour: Magnuson Park
This is an opportunity to refresh navigation skills in a relatively warm, relaxed, and supportive, environment. The only navigation factor missing from Magnuson Park is elevation gain and loss.
Map the Tour
Using a laptop computer, find the Program Center in BaseCamp or other topographic mapping software. Mark one spot as the trailhead. Mark additional points to walk as the GPS units record a track. Pick a creative route with curves and places where the paths cross. Pick two parallel paths, out and back. The tracks out and back should be identical if reception was perfect. If the tracks diverged, that would show the variability in reception between the units. If mor than one GPS is in the team, one can be set to use just the GPS satellites of the USA, the other can be set to use both the American and Russian GLONASS satellites. The two satellite systems used together often provide better coverage in heavy timber.
Task 5: Map Setup
Mark up the map with the trailhead, destination, and intermediate waypoints, if that has not been done in BaseCamp or other software. Estimate travel distance by counting kilometer grid squares over the course of the tour. Snowshoe tours usually go at a speed of between 2 and 3 km/h (kilometers per hour). Estimate the time for the trip. Figure out a time and place for a lunch stop. Ask the group if this seems OK to them.
Compass Setup
Check that everyone has a compass set to a declination of 16 degrees. Using a G)PS, find the bearing to the lunch location. Set all the compasses to this bearing. Check that everyone is facing the same direction.
Altimeter Setup
Calibrate the altimeter to the nearest contour line on the paper or GPS map.
Task 6: GPS setup
GPS units need to be configured for winter navigation. A tutorial on this is HERE.
Then, they have to be set up for specific tour. As part of the tour materials, a "gpx" file is distributed to the participants so they can load it into their units. The proposed route of the tour is in the gpx file along with waypoints. Verify that every GPS has a full set of batteries. Smartphone GPS apps are set up the same way. Since they are limited in battery life, particularly in winter, they can be turned on when needed. Handheld GPS units can be used to record the track of the group as it wanders through the woods. If at least one GPS was used in this way, the track in can be retraced on the way out in case the trail has been obscured by snow and wind.
GPS tour Setup
Turn on the units
Clear the trip data and track memory.
Calibrate the compass if there is one in the GPS or phone.
Calibrate the altimeter if there is one in the GPS or phone.
Mark the location of the cars, trailhead, or both.