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Use "Trail Run" activity profile for hiking?

Former Member over 7 years ago

Has anyone used the "Trail Run" activity profile for hiking on their VA3? And how do you change the activity name?

I hike 2 times a week, with roughly 10-15 miles distance and 4,000 ft of elevation gain. I'll be getting the Fenix 5X at some point, but this is in the meantime. Previously I was using my 920XT, which maybe I'll have to continue using for hiking if the VA3 cannot accommodate hiking. Also, I tend to be gone 8-12 hours (one time 17 hours with my group).. can the VA3 battery life last?

0 jim_m_58 over 7 years ago

When you create "Trail Run" on a va3, it's just a copy of "run" with a different name, so you could just use "run" itself. Both will also be considered a "run" when you look at your stats on the watch. Using an activity that records it as a hike eliminates that, as the watch knows it's not a run.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

What would the tracking difference be between a "Run" vs "Walk" mode?

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Reading some other posts, I appears that some Garmin watches have an "Ultra Trac" mode which seems to reduce the frequency of the device taking gps and altimeter readings which will extend battery life? It appears that the VA3 does not have this feature, correct? I was thinking of creating a "Hiking" profile by copying the "Walk" profile and adding Ultra Trac, but guess I can't do that and the VA3?

0 jim_m_58 over 7 years ago

Ultra Track is only on higher end devices. You can copy "walk", but I don't think "Hike" is one of the names you can pick. And even so, when it gets synced to Garmin Connect, it's still shown as a walk.

But, you can record a hike and have it shown as a hike with Hike2.

If battery life is an issue for you, you can charge the watch "on the go" with the proper settings and a battery based charger.

0 5270954 over 5 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Is there any other difference than name of the activity in the Garmin Connect? E.g. frequency of the GPS reading, points tracking or... or maybe the most important, distance measured in 3D (not just the vertical projection)?

Formerly I had Amazfit Pace and as every Amazfit sportswatch it has the ability to switch on the 3D measuring of the activity distance. If you hike over mountains with a lot of elevation the distance is significantly higher then.

0 5270954 over 5 years ago in reply to 5270954

This is what I meant:
support.garmin.com/.../

0 Otto-Destruct over 5 years ago in reply to 5270954

Of note: you can copy a sporting type file from one Garmin to another, but there's no guarantee it'll work.

Example: WalkingWalk_Indoor.fit is the "Walk Indoor" activity found on the Forerunner 245. Copying that file to a 945 adds it to the 945.

You could try doing same with the Hike.fit file from a 945...but there may be compatibility issues going from a Forerunner (5-button non-touchscreen) to your Vivoactive. (.fit files from my friend's VA3 were unstable on my 945)

Regardless: I've attached "Hike.fit" from my 945 inside a ZIP file. Unzip it, give it a shot and let us know how it works. It goes in the "Sports" folder if you're browsing your device from a desktop computer.

Hike.zip

0 5270954 over 5 years ago in reply to Otto-Destruct

I have copied it to Sports directory, restarted the watch, but I don't see the activity on the list - neither on the watch or Garmin Connect.

0 Otto-Destruct over 5 years ago in reply to 5270954

You have to go into settings and add it.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Hi Jim! Can I pause the hiking activity indefinitely when I stop for a mid-hike lunch without losing the data? What's the best way to handle this? Thanks!