[pct-l] Lightest slimest altimeter watch? (NOT the Helix)

[randy_forsland at hotmail.com (Randy Forsland)]

One thing to think about is that most wristwatch/altimeters rely on the 
barometric pressure reading to calculate elevation. The only way to get true 
altitude is with a GPS system which is immune to barometric fluctuations. 
That being said, you will find that all of the wristwatch altimeters will 
tend to drift throughout the day. Barometric readings are a measure of the 
air density and cold air is denser than warm. So I found that if I waited 
until the sun has been up for at leat four hours before calibrating the 
altimeter, it would stay calibrated and reflect more accurately the 
elevations than if I tried calibrating it early in the am or later in the 
evening.

I had on a couple of occassions, noticed that a column of very dense air 
would sometimes be present on the southern sides of the passes and would 
cause large fluctuations in the altitude reading as we climbed, sometimes 
dropping 1000 ft or so. I saw this same affect with 3 different altimeter 
watches including the Helix.

The altimeter watch is still a great navigational tool. Yogi's PCT Handbook 
has a writeup that I submitted in the "Favorite piece of Gear" section. It 
saved my butt on a couple of occassions. You don't need to be spot on...plus 
or minus a couple hundred feet is fine when trying to locate your position 
on the topo maps...

The 3 altimeters that were present in the group that I huked with were the 
Helix, Casio and the Highgear (which I thought was the best looking)..I had 
no problem waking up to the Helix alarm...but I usually sleep pretty light 
on the trail.

here is a link for the highgear watch

http://www.freshtracksmaps.com/altimeters.htm

Redwood