Biking and Hiking With Your Pocket PC

The buzz words these days are "stay connected!" Lots of trendy people take their PDAs along to "get extra work done." But there are other, more important reasons to leave the office behind, and a PDA can still come in handy. What I'd like to explore are some of the ways that you can use your Palm-size or Pocket PC (or any PDA) to improve your outdoor hobby or sport. In this article I'll cover some specific outdoor activities like hiking, biking, stargazing and photography, and then take a look at GPS systems, first aid, and Pocket PC protection.

Hiking and mountain biking: be prepared

I suspect that the guys I hike with were never Boy Scouts because they're not always completely prepared! We generally know what trail we want to take, but sometimes none of us have actually been on that trail before. This is where my Palm-size PC comes in handy. I use it to bring along trail descriptions.

Take a virtual hike to the Great Outdoor Recreation Pages (www.Gorp.com) and peruse their mind-boggling array of trip descriptions. The key to finding a trail guide is the search feature called "Trail Finder" (located on the bottom left of the home page). Find a trail that suits your waffle-footed fancy (see Screen 1), then cut and paste the information into a document and copy it to your Pocket PC. If you don't find what you want at Gorp, stop by TrailSource (www.trailsource.com). If none of that free stuff makes you happy, take a look at Trailsmart (www.trailsmart.com). Regardless of where you get your information, make sure to include the following: trail length, elevation, directions to the trail head (I hate getting lost before I get started), closest forest service station, distance to nearest phone and regulations specific to that area.

Screen 1: The Great Outdoor Recreation Pages is just one of the online sources where you can find trail information you can copy to your Pocket PC.

The secret life of plants

I've met people who can look across a mountain meadow and identify 6,211 different wildflowers by phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. I usually tune them out when they start explaining that the plant was native to the rocky shores of northern Newfoundland up until the mid 1840s... You don't need to know every variation of the Red-Stemmed Cow Lily, but it is nice to be able to identify plants common to the area you hike or bike in. The best source I have found is MS Encarta. Encarta has a wildflower section that features small photos and great descriptions, including range of the flower. Other sources include the Rocky Mountain Wildflower CD (www.rvinteractive.com/CDROMS/index.html) and the Pocket Guides found on the California Native Plant Society Web site (http://cnps.org/bookstore/discovery.htm). You can load descriptions and images of flora into your Pocket PC for future reference (see Screen 2).

Screen 2: You can load descriptions and images of flora into your Pocket PC for future reference. [Shown here is a photo of a Camas Lily taken by Mike Hagen and displayed on the Casio EM500 Pocket PC using its Picture Viewer application.]

Lion, Tigers and Bears, oh my! To compliment your newfound repository of botanical wonders, you'll need to be able to identify the local wildlife. Sidle over to Enature.com (www.enature.com) and enter your zip code in their "Local Guide" engine. You'll get several pages of local wildlife descriptions and photographs. With all the information at hand, don't be surprised if your hike or bike trip takes a little longer. Take your time, you'll be amazed at the variety and complexity to be found on even the shortest trips!

Star gazing