What a way to start off the mountain training season! I recommend this run to anyone who need a good kick in the butt to work off the winter jelly roll.
As part of my ongoing trail surveying project, I ran Zane Grey this year with my GPS eTrex Vista. Track points were set to one every ten yards. The track log was later manually surveyed and corrected for ratty and extraneous points. The error factor for a track point per three yards has been demonstrated (through three hundred miles of testing in comparison with stretched chain and survey measurements) to be 99% when superimposed on the All Topo digital elevation model and accompanying distance calculation algorithm in that software. A track point per ten yards should reveal about a 96-97% error factor, based on my plots of error factors for distances measured with track points every 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 feet earlier this year. The error factor is admittedly extrapolated, but pretty stinking close (if you can beat my data, send me your stuff).
Here are the new distance calculations:
| START | 0.00 |
| Geronimo | 8.104 |
| Verde | 16.33 |
| Hell's Gate | 22.89 |
| Fish Hatchery | 32.006 |
| Christopher Creek | 42.186 |
| FINISH | 49.80 |
Based on these distances, three water bottles are recommended starting at Hell's Gate.
Note: Distances in the profile have not been corrected for track point undercomputation (see above)(0.97 error factor). Also, the amount climbed and descended is overcomputed (climb is actually about 10,500')
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| Medium Map (6.86 MB) | Huge Map (21.3 MB) |
Click on the thumbnails, and a very detailed png file of the entire course will download into your default viewer (probably Microsoft Picture and Fax Viewer). Choose your map based on your download speed. The huge map is gorgeous, but is, well, huge. Below, the course is broken into smaller sections.
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| Geronimo | Washington | Hatchery | See Canyon | Finish |
All maps are zoomable on just about any viewing software, and in 24K detail. The colors are weird because the latest USGS revisions have not yet been colorized. These maps are the latest available. Many thanks to iGage Mapping Corporation, Salt Lake City, UT, for making All Topo, the best mapping software on the market.
Once you download the file, right click it, save it into your favorite folder, and then open it in you preferred viewer (like Paint or Photoshop). Have fun!
All images and data © 2005 Phil Lowry.