Hello all.  My wife and I are relatively new to hiking and the site.  We recently went on a hike in the gorge and took a few different trails and when we were done we wished we had a way to track elevation and distance.  Anyone have a reccomendation for a cheap solution that allows me to transfer onto a google earth or similar map so I can document my hikes.  Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Welcome to the site!

The standard tool for this kind of thing is a GPS. It will keep a log of your entire trek.

There are a number of tools for working with the data afterword from the Topo software to freeware and online tools like gpsvisualizer.

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What do you suppose is around that next bend?

GPS units do this but aren't cheap.  Garmin has several units from about $250 to $450.  Plus you have to buy the Garmin Mapsource map software for about $100 to get the topographic maps.

You can get an altimeter for maybe $100 that gives elevation.  Then write down on paper the elevation and time at various points which will give you close to what you want.

Here is a good site: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/. Check out the Links section.

If you have a GPS-enabled cell phone it might get you much of the functionality you would get from a dedicated (and expsnsive) GPS unit. Your phone's features limit what kind of software you can run on it, but apparently (and I'm just starting to look into this) touch-screen PDAs like the AT&T Tilt can run Delorme software and let you carry topo maps in your phone on which you can overlay your position, load waypoints from your laptop, etc.

My Treo 650 which is not GPS-enabled has aftermarket Bluetooth units available for it, though the extra cost would almost buy me a newer PDA.

If anyone here uses a cell phone / PDA as a GPS unit, please share your experience!

 

Thanks for the help guys.  I figured a GPS of some kind.  I was sort of hoping there was a simple device similar to a sd card that you could turn on to have it monitor distance and elevation and then turn off when your hike was done and plug it into your pc.  I know nike has the device for running but it uses your stride to determine distance I believe and hiking trails isn't all that uniform.

Another cheap idea is to buy a Green Trails map for $5.The one for this area is called Bridal Veil and there are maps for nearly everywhere.A bigger and more detailed map would be Trails of the Columbia Gorge, by Geo Graphics.Both are availablle from REI.
 You can document your hikes by using a highlighter on the trails you took, or, Xerox the appropriate section. It is always good to have the map before you go somewhere.