The use of GPS (Global Positioning System) has become very popular lately. We don’t intend to explain here how it works, for that purpose, there are many sites in the Internet and books about it. Our offer consists in renting a GPS device, having in mind people who already know the basics about how to work with it or have their own device, and to them we want to give some advice to use in the field.

To go on excursion with the support of a GPS equipment provides great additional safety: Even if you don’t know the area nor have prerecorded information, in case of getting lost, with the help of the “Track Log”, you can walk over your steps back to the starting point. If the equipment has specific information --Tracks, Waypoints and/or Routes-- the possibilities multiply: You can let yourself be guided by the device through a path, check every now and then if you are on the right track or if you took the wrong turn on the last bifurcation. The best advantage given by a GPS though, is when there is no clear path because it is partially covered by snow, it continues through rocks, or in case a sudden fog wouldn’t allow you to recognize the exact point to reenter the forest.

Besides trekking and hiking excursions, there is another area where it could be useful to rent a GPS: If you are the owner of a property in the countryside, you can walk along the perimeter to check the exact location of the field in satellite images like Google Earth. The device can even calculate the area within.

A Track, or more precisely a Track log, is the succession of geo referred points that are automatically taken by the GPS device while we move. Each point has the information about its exact location –the coordinates and altitude- and time. With the distance and time lapse between two points of the track, the equipment can calculate the direction and speed. The track log is the trail or print we left while we walk and is shown in the device’s screen.
While the track log is the active recording during the walk, we talk about a track when one is already saved and/or loaded to a PC.

The Track Back is a function of the GPS. It can project the track log or any saved track and guide us through the original path, to its end or to the beginning, depending on what we want to do.

The Waypoint is different than a track point since it is intentionally created by the user. Besides, the information about the geographic location is identified by a name –automatically created by the GPS or given by the user- and it could be represented by a symbol of your choice, like Campsite, Drinking Water, Danger, etc.
The waypoints are usually taken in significant places in the field, like a junction, a river crossing, enter and exit of a forest, fences and gates, houses, signs or marks, etc.
It is possible to navigate towards a waypoint (function GOTO), but not to a certain track point.

A Route is the sequence of waypoints in the precise order you intend to use them. With the function “navigate” activated, when you get closer to a waypoint the GPS automatically indicates where the next is. Be aware that the GPS shows with an arrow in a straight line towards the next waypoint, not considering if there is an obstacle in the middle or if you have to go around there. If the path between two neighboring waypoints gets too far away from the straight line, you could think that you are wrong. That is why it is better to create additional control points, which is easy when you work the track on the PC.
It is important to know that a route only exists along the waypoints that create it, if you erase them from the equipment, the route will disappear as well.

In few words, we can say that a route consists of straight parts between two waypoints. Even though the same happens with the track and the track points, these are so close from one another (according to the topography and speed of the person they could be 5 to 20 meters apart) that projected in a map or GPS screen, the track shows all the nooks of the trail. In most of the GPS devices a route can take up to 125 waypoints, meanwhile a recorded track can support up to 500 points, and the track log up to 10.000. Generally it is not recommended to load a track into the equipment as an active track log, since this will take part of the memory and when full, it won’t continue recording your trail or it will begin rewriting on top of the first points of the track log. That is the reason why the longer tracks we have are divided in several parts up to 500 points each.

The accuracy in the measuring depends directly on the number of satellite that the equipment can find. According to our experience, 90% of the time the precison indicated is within 10 meters radium. In an open field without forest and no mountains, the measurements can be as exact as 5 meters. If you are at the steep side of a mount, you loose the information of the satellites that are “behind the mountain”. Also inside a forest with tall trees the reception is poorer. If two of these incidents sum up, it could be impossible to find a signal to help you find your location.
It is important to know that to a GPS it is harder to find a position inside a forest if the device was off at the moment of entering it, rather than if the equipment was continuosly on.

We have equipments Garmin eTrex Euro for rent, which are simple, but accurate and easy to work with. We give them with a quick starting guide in English, German or Spanish, along with the original manual in English (or if you prefer as a PDF document in either Spanish or German).

The prices for renting are (1 US$ aprox. 500 Ch$):

We also ask for a deposit of Ch$ 75.000 or US$ 150 that we will give you back when you return the equipment.
Batteries are not provided.

If you want to know the Garmin eTrex, you can download the manuals as a PDF.

	Guía Rapida/Quick Start	Manual
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We have geo referred data of all the excursions described in “Hikes”. Each pack consists of one or several tracks, the corresponding waypoints and the route. In that way the user can choose how to navigate.

If you want to rent one of our GPS devices, you can tell us which data you need to load on it. For people with their own devices, we can sell them just the data.
For more information please visit >

NOTE: For coordination purposes, the rental of the equipment and the purchase of geo referred data should be requested a couple of days in advance via e-mail.

Handling the rented GPS device, as well the geo referred data we provide, is exclusive responsability of the user. We tried to create it with the most possible accuracy, but we cannot exclude that there may be errors and/or measuring imprecisons.
We refuse responsability if you get lost and/or suffer an accident. A GPS device is a wonderful help for orientation and navigation, but does not replace the necessary attention and use of commun sense by the excursionist.