I could add an awesome piece of equipment to my fieldwork gear: a Garmin Oregon 600t, a high-tech walking gps that promised me that I would never get lost in the mountains.
Little friends like this one are a crucial item in the backpack of every mountain ecologist. They mean more than the only trustworthy way to find back plots or measurement equipment from previous years. They are also from extreme importance in providing exact elevation information as input for ecological models (to define elevational distributions for species, for example).
Although they will never fully replace the traditional topographic maps on paper (you do not want to be stuck on an unknown mountain with failing gps batteries!), I would never have a field trip without one.
With this little piece of technology, I professionalized my research once again a bit more. Ready for the next field season!
As a final note: struggling on which GPS to buy? I am happy to provide a review for my Garmin Oregon!
