Ipod on Winter Trips

[JPD1600]

I've got a 4 day, 3 night trip coming up in the Catskills...I'm currently devising ways to avoid the inevitable bordeom that comes with the long winter nights and thought of bringing my Ipod along. I've noticed on some of the pictures posted along with trip reports on this site the tell tale white wire of an Apple Ipod (specifically I'm remembering Skimom's pics from her Mt. Washington Trip report and some pictures from the recent Kathadin trip report). How does the Ipod handle winter time on the trail? Battery Life? Freezing screens? I'm figuring on stashing the Ipod in my sleeping bag at night and during the day stashing it in my pack in a small bag with a handwarmer. Any thoughts on these ideas?

Thanks
Joe

 

[Sherpa John]

My iPod has been known to to freeze up on hikes. Using handwarmers helps. Also, stashing it in ones pants as in clippe on your waistband backwords helps. I learned this from Sarahs trick with her insulin pump because that freezes in winter as well. Its all good!

 

[Warren]

I don't bring music players into the woods with me but I drive with one and in real life I get to support computers and the little dodads that mate with them.

Last winter, at the very cold ADK gathering I had my ipod in the truck. It suffered not at all despite the -30 or worse temps- it was unused during that time. However after 3 days of that cold I waited 30 minutes of driving time before starting it up.

I would guess: 1) the screen won't like extreme cold 2) the battery won't like extreme cold (though it is lithium ion, I think) 3) If there's internal condensation it could be BAD.

Keep it under your jacket, start with a full battery, tune it's settings to save power. Consider a lilypod case (insulated waterproof hard case) if you'll be doing this alot. A handwarmer kept close to it may help for the times it's in your jacket. Most of all I would just avoid using it when the ipod is going from cold state to a warm state.

The above should apply to most non solid state electronics.

 

[DougPaul]

I have read that the iPod contains a mini-disk which is altitude sensitive. (Using it above about 10K ft can destroy the disk.) Said disk might also be temperature sensitive. There are other music players that use a memory card which are not altitude sensitive and are probably less temperature sensitive than the mini-disk.

Doug

 

[JPD1600]

Just to clarify, I'm not planning on listening to it while I'm hiking, I'm more intersted in using it while I camp for the night to pass some time before I fall asleep.

Thanks for the all the suggestions so far

 

[Sparky]

I have a Rio Chiba

It doesn't have a hard drive, songs are stored in flash memory. It runs on AAA batteries. Never had trouble with it freezing and battery life is not a problem, as you can carry a few extra AAA's. I get about 12-hours out of 1-AAA battery.

It has a memory card expansion slot, which I've added a 1-gig card. So with 1-gig+256-mb, you can get quite a few songs on it. Of course, not as many as an Ipod. Plus, if you really want to carry a lot of songs, you can pick up a few extra memory cards and change them in seconds and it's like you put in a new library of music.

It's about the size of an average compass, and weighs in at about "nothing". I dropped it in some slush once and it kept playing, however the screen was a little foggy. So now I carry it in a plastic Ziploc bag to kept the weather out.

The Chiba's go for about $129 now.

I also picked up a Creative Zen Touch, 20gb device. It stores music on a hard drive and supposedly has a 24-hour battery life. I have not trail tested it yet.

 

[MichaelJ]

I have a very hard time falling asleep while hiking, and lack of sleep will really kick ya in the butt on the next day's trek. I'm looking at complementing my iPod with an iPod Shuffle for this purpose. It's entirely solid state, no disk, no screen, and only .78 ounces.

 

[spaddock]

I have a very hard time falling asleep while hiking, and lack of sleep will really kick ya in the butt on the next day's trek. I'm looking at complementing my iPod with an iPod Shuffle for this purpose. It's entirely solid state, no disk, no screen, and only .78 ounces.

I hear you on the sleep factor. People snoring in the lean-to don't help either. I've been contemplating getting something for the sleep. I'd want to have something with an FM tuner for weather reports and AAA's would be preferred. The shuffle looks pretty neat.


-Shayne

 

[Sparky]

No that I'm trying to sell you on the Rio Chiba. It has shuffle play and an FM tuner built in.

 

[Jasonst]

Love my Rio Player!!

I have a Rio Chiba

It doesn't have a hard drive, songs are stored in flash memory. It runs on AAA batteries. Never had trouble with it freezing and battery life is not a problem, as you can carry a few extra AAA's. I get about 12-hours out of 1-AAA battery.

It has a memory card expansion slot, which I've added a 1-gig card. So with 1-gig+256-mb, you can get quite a few songs on it. Of course, not as many as an Ipod. Plus, if you really want to carry a lot of songs, you can pick up a few extra memory cards and change them in seconds and it's like you put in a new library of music.

I've got the Rio also and it's small, lightweight and works awesome. I have used the radio function to get weather reports etc. I believe I also tuned in the Pats game last year and certainly helped alleviate the boring descent from Mt Garfield!

 

[Kevin]

I just picked up the 512mb iPod Shuffle this past weekend... I love this thing. Talk about small and light weight, thing weighs next to nothing. And talk about as small! It literally is about the size of a pack of gum. According to some reports, the battery should last longer then 12 hours, but of course enviroment and usage will alter that number.

The biggest downside, is that many of the accessories are not out yet, the one I want is the arm band, so in the nicer weather I don't have to worry about carrying it around my neck. And they plan to have a cradle that holds AAA batteries to use as an external power source.

As an aside note, the way it does carry around your neck bothers me from a safety point of view. It would not take much for someone to grab it, and leaving you with the lanyard around your neck and earphones dangling too. Granted you could put it under your coat, which would help with battery life in the cold, but I don't wear coats in the heat of summer too often. Hence the want for the arm band.

I picked it up this past weekend at the Danbury, CT Apple store, they only had the 512 size, not the 1gig which they expect in a few weeks.

Overall, for the price of $99 bucks, and that it will work like the other iPods on both Mac and PC, and the small size of it, it is a very nice little unit. I will be making good use of it.

Catch you later... Kevin

 

[ExploreTheEast]

I just picked up the 512mb iPod Shuffle this past weekend...

I ordered a 1 gig Shuffle maybe 5 minutes after Jobs announced it at SanFran Mac Expo, got it a couple weeks later. So far, it RULES. It weighs so little, I don't even know I have it on me. I've dropped it or fell on it about a half dozen times already, been snowboarding and mountain biking with it. I generally get more than 250 songs in, and usually leave it in it's "shuffle" position, so I never know what song'll play next. It's great, can't recommend it enough.

It is a bummer that the accessories won't be available for another month or two, but that's the only downside I'm seeing. Some people are unhappy with only a gig of storage, but I don't think I'll ever need more than the 16 hours of music this thing is capable of playing. Whenever I need to replace the songs with new ones, it's one click of a button in iTunes.

It's funny, with the size and weight of the Shuffle, you'd think it was built explicitly for weight-conscious hikers.