Luper Cemetery

Luper Cemetery is one of the older pioneer cemeteries in Oregon.  It is off of River Road just north of Fir Grove (Eugene).  We visited it for the first time a few months ago in winter.  At our first visit, it was totally overgrown with blackberry brambles and was quite eery, but I didn't have a working camera at the time.  At this visit, the cemetery was partially cleaned up and much of the vegetation cleared out.  It wasn't quite as eery with this visit, but it is still very damaged from extensive vandalism.

During our first visit to Luper Cemetery we found one of the graves dug up.  Apparently some vandals had the gall to dig up a pioneer grave in search of some artifact or another.  You can see from the above photo that the grave has since been filled in.

Garmin eTrex Vista GPS Handheld

This thing seemed so promising when we bought it.  It's loaded with great features.  It has an electronic compass that works, unlike many other GPS units, even when your standing still.  It has an atmospheric altimeter with the ability to track elevation change as you go and gives a sum elevation gain reading.  You can  load detailed map topographic maps.  And, of course, it tracks location, current speed, average speed, and total distance covered.

With all these features, it seemed like it ought to be perfect for tracking your overall workout on hikes, giving you not only the distance walked but also your speed and elevation gain.  Very cool, in theory.

As with so many gadgets these days, however, the practical reality turned out to be very different.  The thing sits in our glove compartment now collecting dust.  Every once in awhile I take it out, deluding myself that it will suddenly work better, but after 10 minutes or so of waiting for it to get a reading, I get disgusted and put it back.  Every time I it take out of the glove compartment, Sarah looks at me like she's thinking, "On no, not again!"

Here are a list of my top frustrations for those of you who might be considering a purchase (I added the Amazon link for form's sake alone, I'm clearly not trying to talk anyone into a purchase):

• Battery life is too short.  With basic non-rechargeables, you would be lucky to get one hike out of it, if you're in good shape and take long walks, not even that.  If you buy the high-end rechargeables you can get more out of it, but the cheaper rechargeables have a shorter charge than even your basic alkaline batteries.  Sure, you can get a reading and turn it off, but then you would be missing out on all those features that require continuous readings.
• It takes forever to get a reading.  Part of this is where we live.  In Western Oregon, hikes mean Douglas Fir trees, lots of them.  This severely interferes with the eTrex' ability to get a reading from the satellites.  Even with an open patch of sky above, I've stood there sometimes for 10 minutes and still couldn't get a reading.  I've even had trouble getting a reading with the thing sitting on the dashboard of our car while driving on a major highway, due to trees and mountains around.  And if your actually hiking in the near vicinity of trees or mountains or in a canyon, you might as well forget about it.
• Yes you can load maps but using them is an exercise in frustration.  The detailed maps you can buy from Garmin and load to the eTrex severely slow down its mapping function.  Besides which the little low-res screen doesn't show much detail anyway.
• The atmospheric altimeter is supposed to be more precise than a GPS based altimeter.  For the most part it is, but at times, I've gotten wild readings that basically negate its usefulness on a given hike.  I guess this must be due to changes in atmospheric pressure?
• The accompanying map software is not available for Mac, which means I had to use my work computer.

Overall, the Garmin eTrex Vista is a great concept, but in the real world, it is no more useful than the cheapest handheld GPS unit available.  It might work a little better if you take all your hikes in a place that is perfectly flat with no trees.