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Long Term Report - National Geographic Back Roads Explorer
February 15, 2005
Name: David Sowards-Emmerd
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Height: 5' 8'' (1.73 m)
Weight: 155 lb (70 kg)
Email Address: drunken_marmotATyahooDOTcom
Los Altos, California, USA
Date: February 15, 2005
Backpacking Background:
I began backpacking semi-frequently about four years ago, soon
after moving to California. I generally take weekend (1 night)
trips, and occasionally take 3-4 day trips. Most of my
backpacking experience is at moderate altitude, 6,000'-12,000'
(1,800-3,650 m), in conditions ranging from dry desert to hail/heavy
snow in the mountains. In winter and spring I split time between
Southern California (SoCal) deserts and snowshoeing/skiing/snowcamping in
the Sierra/Cascades. Summer and fall I tend to stick to the high country.
I have reduced my packweight down to less than 50 lb (23 kg) over
the past year - including food/water and a bear barrel. I'm trying to
include more mountaineering, climbing and bouldering in my trips.
Product Description:
Manufacturer's website: www.nationalgeographic.com
MSRP: $59.95
Back Roads Explorer is a software package that combines moderate resolution
topographical maps with road data for the entire United States. For a more
detailed description of the product see my Initial Report.
For details of my first two months of use of the product, see my Field Report.
Further Use:
During the past four months, I've used Back Roads Explorer on several
extended trips - both in the planning phases and during the actual trip.
During the week of thanksgiving, I took a nine day road trip from the
bay area, up to Reno, then down the east side of the Sierra all the
way to Death Valley National Park, and back home around the southern
portion of the Sierra. The software was used both in planning the trip
as well as with my laptop mid-trip - improvising where to ski, and
finding some backcountry bouldering locations north of Bishop, CA.
I spent most of two weeks in northern Michigan over New Years and used
Back Roads to check my hazy memory of the back routes between my wife's
parents home in Traverse City and the cabin my parents rent for cross
country skiing in Wilderness State Park (west of Mackinaw City). The
third and final extended road trip was a straight shot from home to Salt
Lake City, Utah to represent BackpackGearTest.org at the Outdoor Retailer
show. In this case, I used Back Roads to check the distance between the
remote towns in Nevada (so I wouldn't run out of gas) as well as checking
elevations and locations of passes for possible snow encounters and
delays along the drive. Additionally, I've used Back Roads in checking
routes to several weekend trips and for finding alternate bike routes to
and from work.
What I Like:
- Lots of detailed maps at my fingertips for the entire US for
a very reasonable price.
What I Don't Like: (in addition to things listed in my Field Report)
- Proprietary data format for waypoints/routes is a bit annoying. Data
can be exported to a text file, but free, third party software doesn't
know what to do with the text.
- I can't start a route on a road - the 'Route Tool' cursor doesn't
do anything when clicking on a road (although this can be set to
display the name of the road on the map). Thus tracing a road exactly
is annoying - it involves drawing a route starting away from the road,
finishing the route, and then deleting the beginning of the route up to
the road. I still believe that a feature where clicking on a segment of
road would create a route matching the road is the 'common sense' solution
to this problem.
Nitpicks:
- On startup, the zoom tool is the default cursor. I find this to be a
completely useless cursor, since with the 'Traveling Tool' right clicking
allows zooming in at that point to any level. I would like to see the
zoom feature applied to the mouse wheel so that scrolling the mouse wheel
one direction zooms in and zooms out when scrolled the opposite direction.
In the current software, the mouse wheel is only really used in scrolling
through waypoint/route lists.
Follow-up on Interfacing with the State Series Maps:
National Geographic has recently released a 3-D plus Roads package
for the state series maps that relieves the need for an improved
interface between the Back Roads and the state series maps.
Some Features I haven't used:
- GPS connectivity - my Brunton MNS is not supported by this software.
I am able to upload data via free third party software, but unable to
upload waypoints or routes to my GPS. Unfortunately my trial version of
ExpertGPS, which allowed such uploads, expired right before the
beginning of the testing period.
- Attaching notes and photos: I occasionally write up trip reports
for hikes, but I'm lazy and haven't included or even taken photos
recently. However, I have not tried attaching photos or notes to
maps, and cannot report on how useful it is.
- Pocket TOPO!: I just tried this out tonight with my old black and
white Handspring Visor and surprisingly Pocket TOPO! installed
without a hitch using the menu option in Back Roads. I thought
this was a bit odd since this is a program listed for purchase
on the National Geographic website. However, since I just have
an old handheld, this doesn't do me a lot of good with four
shades of gray.
Conclusions:
Back Roads Explorer is an excellent value for an all-US road atlas.
However the disadvantage is that you need a laptop, because in
printing the maps you lose a large amount of functionality (road names for
one, ability to zoom). I've changed my mind after more use of the product
and while I find it is generally user-friendly, I believe there is much
room for improvement in the functionality of Back Roads Explorer.
Continued Use:
I'll definitely continue to use this product in the future. At the
moment, I'm searching for jobs across the country and this provides a
nice reference for seeing what is accessible near a given city, and
how far of a drive to the mountains. Also, I'll still be using Back
Roads for planning trips in the few areas of California that my wife
and I have not explored yet.
Read more reviews of National Geographic gear
Read more gear reviews by David Sowards-Emmerd
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