Saturday, March 27, 2010

A Walk by Lake Tahoe


With the application RunKeeper running on my iPhone I took a walk along lake Tahoe, Nevada. The path of the walk is shown on the map as taken by the iPhone's GPS. I started from the point on the right and reached the extreme point on the left then went back. It was cold, around 32 F, but it was convenient for a brisk walk. The area is on the northern part of the lake near the border between Nevada and California. Actually the walk itself was in the California side. As usual the area was covered with snow, especially on the tops of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which means in Spanish the snowy mountains. The scenes in the area were spectacular. The picture shows a glimpse of the beauty in the area. People go there for skiing even in the spring, and of course boating, canoeing, kayaking and swimming. Swimming must be in the summer only.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Walking activities


It is spring again and one of the ubiquitous activities in spring is walking. It is simple and does not cost anything. I ran across this great application for the iPhone that uses GPS to track your walking path and displays your speed, calories burnt and miles you walked. It is very useful. You can even add photos along the path you're walking across.
In this example I walked for about three miles at an average rate of 21 minutes per mile. The path itself is shown in the red meandering line.
Of course it is not a big deal when you just stroll locally around the house, but if you hike in an exotic place somewhere in the nation then it would really be priceless. But even for local strolls wouldn't you like to know your speed and how many calories you burnt? I would. I think it is one of the great applications of the iPhone.