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| Hiking | 10.48 Miles |
634 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.48 Miles | 3 Hrs 42 Mns | | 2.83 mph |
| 634 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | When I got home from my last hike, my Garmin 62s was missing. Not in the car, not in our house, nowhere.  me. My wife has Amazon Prime, so I used her account to buy a new GPS. Though it’s out-of-date and — unfortunately — a Garmin, I ordered a 64sx. At least it has the same buttons in the same places. Muscle memory is important.
The next day, I found my Garmin 62s. Of course. 
At least now I am able to set up the 64sx as close as possible to the 62s, and on today’s hike tested them side-by-side for accuracy.
Considering Memorial Day — the traditional beginning of “summer” — was last weekend, I was surprised how few RVs were camped along FR 141. There was nobody at Dry Lake, and only two ATVs rode past my patient wife while I was gone.
In the drainage blow FR 612B, there were quite a few Rocky Mountain iris just before ECC: Mostly violet, but some were pure white.
As I reached East Clear Creek, I almost bumped into someone. He had a clipboard, instead of hiking gear. Turns out he was doing forest research, though I neglected to ask if he was researching trees, critters or flowers.
Speaking of flowers, I found a fair number of species on the East Clear Creek – Dry Lake Loop, but visual coverage was minimal. Small white asters were the most common. Besides avoiding tripping hazards, another reason I pay such close attention to where I am stepping is finding what flowers there are. And that is why, hidden under some grass, I saw a brief glimpse of purple that turned out to be tiny aspen pea [ photo ] . 
Despite my concentration on my footing, travel at the bottom of East Clear Creek was as easy as could be.
The ECC cave looks more like two hills mooshed together to form a slot canyon, than a cave cave. It is much cooler inside, and there is not too much bat or rat poo. I went as far as I could without low-crawling.
I took a short break at Jones Crossing, before I started hiking forest roads back to Dry Lake. Imagine my surprise: I did not see one vehicle the 30 minutes I was on FR 141!
Comparing my old Garmin 62s and new 64sx [ photo ] there are elevations of 7318, 7314 and 7311 — meaning the 64sx isn’t even agreeing with itself! The correct elevation is 7314. The “total ascent” (i.e. AEG) differ by 50%. The actual AEG is 634 ft.
Distance more closely matches, as 11.3 miles (62s) is only 3% less than 11.6 miles (64sx). I attribute the difference to the number of data points each GPS recorded, 1061 (62s) vs. 1715 (64sx). More frequent sampling should be more accurate for distance, but it wasn’t, being off .76 miles to 10.84 (62s) and .83 miles to 10.48 (64sx).
I started hiking at 8:08, taking three 10-minute breaks and shooting numerous photos, before finishing at 1:18 p.m. (A duration of 5:10.) The moving time, stoppage time, and total time — 5:04 (62s) and 4:55 (64sx) — wildly vary. I didn’t think to use my watch’s chronograph for comparison. I’ll do another test next week, when I hike Blue Ridge National Recreation Trail #107 in the White Mountains.
Hike Video: https://vimeo.com/559626173 |
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me. My wife has Amazon Prime, so I used her account to buy a new GPS. Though it’s out-of-date and — unfortunately — a Garmin, I ordered a 64sx. At least it has the same buttons in the same places. Muscle memory is important.
