2007-07-02 16:19:41
Mapping for GPS
To Beckett : you can ask me through my website for more information about mapping. After having seen Gollum in this forum, I don't want to be the troll of Mountain Views ; )2007-07-01 17:53:46
Re: GPS Ireland map
Pazapas, I would be interested in understanding in a little more detail how you create your map. Are you using Dem2Topo or some similar software? What is your source data?2007-06-30 23:11:43
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| GPS Ireland map (Expand pics) |
GPS Ireland map updated
Hello walkers,The Garmin GPS topo Ireland map is updated (v1.62). It includes the new list of summits higher than 400m and new "smoother" contours (higher point in original data is only 1012m, not 1039, oversampling method erodes summits: 1000m line disappeared).
The new map is available at http://emeraldisland.free.fr/wikka/wikka.php?wakka=GpsMap
I have to explain few things about this map and its purpose. The map is made with elevation data with an average precision (around 90m in northing and 60m in easting for Ireland). I oversampled the grid in order to produce smoother lines. Because of the inaccuracy of source data and the need to obtain a single small file, I generate contour lines with a step of 25m only. Moreover, I think small grey LCD on ruggerised GPS are not well suited to display too much data. Finally, I support the idea that GPS should be used as a secondary mean for orientation. The map I produced is enough detailed to find your position in another manner than just the coordinates referred on a paper map.
Thanks to all who sent me their feedback.
2007-06-29 16:44:44
Bleck Cra's blowhole
I thought I was too old to go humping up Binnian for the millionth time but for someone with an involvement in Irish geology and a concern for the conservation of the Mournes Bleck Cra's picture of the 'explosive vandalism' of the North Tor last month was too intriguing. Vandalism it certainly is but not the mindless type which is the speciality of 'our wee province' - this is vandalism with intent, ie the pursuit of filthy lucre. The hole in the centre of the damaged area opens into a drusy cavity, a gas-filled 'bubble' in the still fluid granite which allowed crystals of quartz etc to grow to their full beauty as the molten rock solidified 60 million years ago. Erosion since the ice-age had opened it up. Professional mineral collectors, with an eye to the gem-stone market, know what to look for and some are are pretty unscrupulous as to how they get at it. In this case if you look carefully you can see the ring of holes drilled into the rock face to take the explosive charges which caused the damage. Fortunately, they didn't get much, their efforts only blew the skin off the rock face. As drusy cavities go this is a cracker, more than a metre deep with the treasures beyond their avaricious reach, and the crystals can be seen, although dulled by countless millenia of being used by sheltering animals and birds. To extend the topic - this is a shameful piece of vandalism - the sort of thing that the enhanced environmental protection that a national park for Mourne, which Bleck Cra seems to have problems with, could help prevent. Opposition to a Park is being led by, and orchestrated by, people with commercial interests no more worthy than this - people who want to build wind-farms in Mourne, who build multi-storey apartment blocks of Rostrevor seafront and Southfork excecrences in the foothills and who are winding the local farmers up to hysteria with fears for their autonomy. The farmers of Mourne have nothing to lose and everything to gain, by the opportunities offered by a National Park
2007-06-29 16:24:59
Skyline in the Sand
I look forward to that mac and to one of us changing the other's opinion - or is that "view"?2007-06-29 12:38:21
Barkworsethanpark
opinion opinion opinion as TB never said we dont need to Harvey over it but what about evidence (sorry for bad word) other NPs work read the runes mccra a rendevous at the skyline should bury something if only sanityGuid folk are scarce-tak care o me.
2007-06-29 02:43:23
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| and I'll pick oot his bonnie blue e'en (Expand pics) |
Park Closing Soon
Well MacCrime, you want your National Park and you shall have it – but think about this: democracy would be something I suspect you hold dear. How is democracy served by a proposal being pushed through because other than the farmers whose lives and whose families lives depend on the outcome, no one else seems to give a hoot? It will go through not because of your vote, but because of your lack of one. Not democracy MacCrime – not one bit. Reflect on that. When you have to pay to park, when you have to fill in a form to walk, when you have to present your Personal Accident Policy to get into Donard Car Park, when Farmer Giles is entitled to remove you from his land (with reasonable force) because a bit of paper says so and when some child in a stripey uniform tells you what you can and what you can’t do, when the whole weight of this disgusting bureaucracy drives to your weary knees, peer out of the good eye left you and watch a large black carrion creature on the horns of a dilemma. Should he take your remaining lamp or not? When Peter Piper picks another peck, it would be a good idea if he keep ‘er lit because someone might just take the ground it grows in, out from underneath him.2007-06-28 11:53:15
Mourn Freedom?
Ponder the po-faced plodders, poles piercing the pristine pantheon of paleolithic plantlife.....prevention parklife .......choose park!!
O, a black craw's nane the whiter
For a dook in saipy suds;
An a feckless fuil's nae better
Tho he's buskit in braw duds.
2007-06-26 20:44:56
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| Table Track grit. (Expand pics) |
Lug Walk
It should have been easy. Just go up to the high point on the Table Track. Note who passes for 3 hours. Although it was sunny and warm in Dublin and fairly ok in the valley at the top it was howling and spitting and freezing. Although I had reasonable gear I found being on a checkpoint is a freezing activity.
Photo shows some of the stalwarts who had reached this point. Sorry I don't know your names.
2007-06-26 16:47:30
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| National Park (Expand pics) |
MOUNTAINS OR MOLEHILLS?
I know you maclimb, from your black soul to your damp socks - and when you are abroad, so is mischief. This is less to do with the irreparable damage you and your big hooves have done to the land than the damage a National Park bureaucracy can do to you (or possibly not - this is the conundrum). Why not see if you can get parole and we'll go visit the bureaucrats.
