A GPS track of my wanderings in BRC 2014

[chuckularone]

I kept a GPS running the entire time I was in Nevada for the 2014 burn. Here is the unexpurgated data from my wanderings.
http://goo.gl/maps/DnOEi


The big lobes without roads were from my flight over the city. The GPS dropped out a few times, but it's still cool!

brc2014.jpg

[sadie]

Oh Wow! That's really cool..! You covered a lot of ground....and sky!

[GreyCoyote]

You definitely did NOT burn lightly! How many total miles did you cover?

[FIGJAM]

He told me 100!!!

[Jovankat]

How did you do this? I saw an alarmist article a few weeks ago about people who use google maps leaving a trail like this everywhere they go. having just retured from New York I was excited t see my trail but when I clicked the link nothing was there. I'd love to know how to turn this on and off at will.

[chuckularone]

I carried my GPS with me. I did not use my phone. I compiled this info on purpose to share.

I haven't compiled the actual distance traveled yet, but it was (as Figjam stated) well over 100 miles (not including the flight!).

[chuckularone]

OK, I was wrong. It was 97.96 miles wandered on foot and bike.

[GreyCoyote]

Slacker )

Heck, Kowtow *crawled* that far.

[chuckularone]

Slacker

Heck, Kowtow *crawled* that far.

But can he prove it!

[GreyCoyote]

Just look for the bruising.

[sadie]

Just look for the bruising.

*smirk and giggle*

[xotis]

Nice! I did something similar as well.


I used a Garmin eTrex Legend that I had in my CamelBak. I ran through 4 AA batteries from Tuesday - Sunday.

I posted similar info on reddit, but for those that want to replicate:

How I did it:

1. Just turn on the GPS unit, and it starts tracking (other interesting facts - I covered 68 miles during the event!)
2. I purchased a data cable on Amazon for my GPS unit. This was a serial cable specific to my unit, so I needed to also purchase a serial to USB converter so I could plug it into my laptop. (eTrex Serial Data Cable: Serial to USB converter: )
3. I downloaded the free "SendMap" software: http://www.cgpsmapper.com/buy.htm, and used it to pull down my "tracks" from the GPS unit. This is what it looks like in SendMap: http://i.imgur.com/q1tiJfT.png
4. I then took screenshots of my tracks while zoomed in within SendMap, because I wanted something fairly high-res. I did the same thing in Google Maps, as you can see here: http://i.imgur.com/kAd4pTT.png
5. Photoshop: I stitched together the screenshots from my map from SendMap in Photoshop, and colored it red. I then stitched together the screenshots from Google Map of Black Rock City, and overlaid my GPS map on top of it.
6. All of the stitching together was time consuming, but not required. I just wanted to be able to see the actual street names in the high res version I have, which you can see if you click on the image above.

Also - big thank you to William Keller for updating and hosting GPS compatible maps of BRC each year! http://www.wkeller.net/BRC-GPS/. That was the inspiration for this, and this is the 2nd year I've made one of these tracker maps of my journey.

(I am not affiliated with any companies or tools listed above, fyi)

[Ano]

I wonder how many people wandered down 4:30 to A street for that one dome....

[chuckularone]

Super cool xotis. You covered a lot of ground! I used a Garmin etrex 10. I had to convert the kml to gpx, but it worked. I always knew where the nearest JOTS were. I "gifted" that info to many people while out and about. During a particularly bad dust storm, I walked two girls about 500 feet to the JOTS that were directly ahead of them. They were amazed!

(edited to correct speeling)

[Bless]

Very cool, thanks for sharing. I can even see when you visited Robot Heart!