A buddy of mine has a Nikon CoolPix AW120 that he brings camping and hiking with us. It has GPS, is pretty light and durable (water, shock and freeze proof). It takes pretty good photos for a point and shoot. Here are some I took when he lent it to me on a backpacking trip. It offers pretty good manual control - nothing like a DSLR, but good enough for an amateur - for what you want, along with plenty of easy auto settings. The GPS has accurately logged out path on trips before, but it does tend to eat up battery pretty quick when you leave the GPS running, as that isn't what it's intended for.

Sounds like a sweet job you've got there. Be sure to share some photos.