GrnXnham

The Jester makes a good point about the autoroute and different usage styles. I used to do the same but now instead of using Garmin's City Navigator I use a free open source autorouting mapset which is a lot cheaper than $100 for Garmin's and I'm able to autoroute while using NW Topos, best of both worlds for me. That's a more advanced discussion and not maybe not fully germane; I'd be happy to discuss in detail if anyone wanted but might be best to discuss in another topic, depending perhaps on Jon's preferences. I downloaded the open street maps but I couldn't get them to work on my Garmin 60Cx. I just went ahead and purchased the Garmin City Navigator sandisk card for 2012 for $44. It's only $100 if you buy it directly from Garmin. If you shop around, you can find it for much cheaper.

Thank you EScout! Your response was helpful. Your method of looking up a found cache is at least a little quicker than my method. I knew there had to be an easier way to do that but there was nothing in the manual about it.

Just got an eTrex 20. This is my 7th Garmin GPSr. I love some of the new features like "Profiles" but some of the very basic functions that I have on my older GPSr's are now needlessly complex or not even there. I have always deleted caches from my GPSr after I find them. I find this easier for me so that I know what I have left to look for. Can't do that with the eTrex 20. Not sure who at Garmin thought it was a bad idea that people should be able to delete a geocache from their unit. I know I can delete it with a computer but I don't have one in the field with me. No problem. I'll start marking the caches as "FOUND" each time I find one and that will change their icons to the open chest look. Then I planned to delete them later when I attach to a computer. Yesterday I cached for the 1st time with the eTrex 20 and I had just marked a cache as "found" when another cacher asked me to read the cache description again. No problem, right--simply bring up the cache info again? Except that now I can't use the "WHERE TO" function by holding in the menu key in order to look for the found cache. A "found cache" doesn't appear in the list of caches. Nor does it appear in the list of waypoints. When I looked at the list of recently found items, I found 13 of the 20 caches that I had found that day but it did not include the cache I had just found. Finally, I went to the map page and dragged the cursor around until I was near the correct icon on the map and pushed on the thumb stick to select it and I was able to bring up the cache info again. Wow! That was difficult for what should be such a simple task. Maybe I'm missing something here? Is the only way to look at info on a "found" cache to drag the cursor around on the map page until I find it? I'd like to send Garmin some suggestions for changes with future firmware for the unit but I'm not sure which route to send Garmin these things. They have an email for repairs or general questions but I haven't found an email address to send them info specifically for bug fixes or suggestions for making the unit easier to use. Has anyone found the best way to contact Garmin for these things?

I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed this: I can't delete large .jpg pictures from the unit using the GPSr but I can delete small ones. The only way to delete the large pics is by attaching to the computer and dragging the pics to the trash. I loaded several .jpgs onto the unit to view using the "photo viewer" option. A few of these .jpg were tiny (16KB) and a few were bigger (2MB) When I went to delete all the .jpgs from the eTrex using the eTrex "delete" option for each picture, it appeared to work. The pictures were gone. But after I turned off the eTrex and then turned it back on again, the large (2MB) jpegs were back on there again. The small ones were still gone. Make any sense? I then attached the unit to the computer and looked in the picture file and confirmed that the large pics were still there and the small ones were gone. I dragged the pics to the trash and they were all gone for good. Not sure why it doesn't want to erase large .jpgs compared to small ones? Firmware 2.5

If it's an SD card you bought from Garmin, isn't it write-protected or something? Or it might contain some hidden data that tells the tools not to overwrite it or something... I'm sure somebody else has more insight here. Depends on how you installed it. With MapInstall, you can select internal storage or SD card as destination before you actually build the map, with the internal storage being the preselected default. Well I used MapInstall but it never gave me the option of selecting internal storage or the SD card as a destination. It just automatically put it on the internal storage. Maybe it has a way of detecting a Garmin City Navigator card and automatically ignores that as a storage option. Yes, it's Garmin's SD card. I'm not sure if it's protected or not but I was able to change the name of the map file on it, just in case.

Wow! That seems like a bad design on Garmin's part! I don't see any warnings in the manual about accidentally overwriting your Navigator card and then having to buy a new one. There wasn't anything about this included with the card either. Why didn't Garmin simply name the maps something else on the card to prevent an accidental overwrite? Yet, it DIDN'T get overwritten when I added maps the 1st time. It somehow knew to add the maps to the internal memory instead of overwriting on the card? Maybe it automatically fills the internal memory 1st before overwriting the card?

Thanks for the response. I checked and now I have a gmapsupp.img file on both the internal memory (maps I added) and the sandisk card (Navigator) So you are saying that If I want to continually change the maps in the internal memory BUT keep the maps on the Sandisk card, I need to change the name of he gmapssupp.img file on the Sandisk card only? OR... If I don't want to alter either sets of maps but just add maps, I should alter the name on both the internal memory and the Sandisk card and then nothing gets overwritten? But will the unit still recognize the maps as maps if I change the name?

Just got the eTrex 20. This is our 1st unit with both internal memory (1.7GB) and the slot for the micro sandisk card. I have installed Garmin's City Navigator micro Sandisk card in the unit. I also installed a few free topo maps from File Depot using my Mac. After doing so, I have a concern: Is it possible to accidentally over-write the City Navigator card when adding additional maps? I noticed that these micro Sandisk cards don't have the locking option like the standard Sandisk cards do, so you can't prevent altering them. When I added 4 geocaches to the unit, I placed three in the internal memory but I accidentally put one of them on the sandisk card. This geocache wasn't recognized by the unit. This tells me that the unit is capable of writing on top of Garmin's Navigator card. So when installing maps, is there a chance that it will wipe out the Navigator maps in order to replace them with any new maps I'm loading or is the unit somehow "smart" and knows to always place additional maps in the internal memory? On my older GPSr units, every time I add maps, everything gets overwritten. I was just concerned that this could happen here and I'd lose City Navigator on the card.

Here is a pic I took just as we walked up to the cache area several minutes before you took your pic. Here you can see a little more of Mt. Howard through the clouds to the left of Rock Mountain before Howard got totally obscured by the clouds.

We should have been better at identifying that mountain since we were up on Rock Mountain at the end of 2010. TotemLake, there is no optical illusion--that is all Rock Mountain in the picture. There are two peaks to the mountain and you can see both peaks in the picture. To get to the top, you climb the lower peak to the right and then cross over the saddle to the higher peak on the left. Mt. Howard isn't in the picture. It would be to the left of the highest peak in your pic. Maybe behind the clouds?

+1 I hate the 24mb of memory on the Venture but I have 6 GPSr's and the Venture has the brightest screen of any of them. I REALLY like the bright screen. I guess you just have to take the good with the bad.

Great hike, TotemLake! Thanks for hosting this.

Two more here.

Same remedy here.

Not sure why you are still lost. People here have given you a couple of different options with the Venture. With only 24MB of maps, you are going to have to make some compromises. We have, and we are still satisfied with our "cheap" GPSr.

The planimetric maps at GPSfiledepot aren't routable, but they're probably more current and as good as any non-routable road maps you could buy. The problem once again is lack of memory. I just checked out the planimetric maps and they are more up to date but they also, for some reason, take up about 4 times the memory of a comparable number of map tiles of Roads & Recreation. Unfortunately, we are severely limited with the Venture HC with 24MB of map space. There are two possible causes for the size difference: different compilers or, different level of detail. Hopefully the individual tile size would be small enough to permit a useful download. Well now that I've compared the two, the planimetric maps have a LOT more info associated with them. For example, when I place the cursor on a street, the planimetric maps tells you what the house number range is for that city block. Roads & Recreation does not do this. This is quite a bit of info to store and would probably account for the huge difference in size. Despite the tiny number of maps that I can load onto the Venture, I like the planimetric maps better overall. We will use the planimetric maps and simply reload different areas onto the GPS as we travel around.

The planimetric maps at GPSfiledepot aren't routable, but they're probably more current and as good as any non-routable road maps you could buy. The problem once again is lack of memory. I just checked out the planimetric maps and they are more up to date but they also, for some reason, take up about 4 times the memory of a comparable number of map tiles of Roads & Recreation. Unfortunately, we are severely limited with the Venture HC with 24MB of map space.

We have the Venture HC. We found most of the maps files at file depot to be too large for the 24mb of memory of this unit. We found an old copy of Garmin Roads & Recreation maps on eBay for cheap. The map size is much smaller and we were able to get our entire state's road maps on the unit. They aren't routable and they're older maps but still MUCH better than the basemap on the unit.

I'm plan on being at the Spur 11 gate (N47 34.471 W121 44.156) between 0800 & 0830 Saturday morning. I think we'll try to be there. $75 each is steep and we wanted to get up to that lake.

Yeah, Costco has a pretty good deal right now on a set of beginner snowshoes and trekking poles together. I think it's something like $70 for the two snowshoes and two trekking poles package. They also now sell gaiters (highly recommended with snowshoes) for $17--also a pretty good deal.

Jerks like you? We bought one pass but I refuse to buy one for each of our vehicles. If we know we are going to a Discover Pass trail-head, we always take the same vehicle. Looks like we aren't the only ones annoyed by the pay-per-vehicle policy of the pass.

Several years ago I slept in my sleeping bad on the open ground in the woods at night. I didn't realize that my sleeping bag contacted some poison oak as I slept. Within a few days I had rashes all over me. I put my clothes and sleeping bag through the washing machine just to be safe. It took a month for the rashes and itching to go away. TWO YEARS LATER I use the sleeping bag on the floor in the house. It hasn't been used since I washed it after the poison oak incident two years prior. I got a poison oak rash again! Not as bad this time, but I guess I didn't wash off all the poison oak oils two years before. Needless to say, I threw away the sleeping bag at that point.

I have to wonder who besides geocachers would want that many ammo boxes??? It's probably two groups of cachers bidding against each other! If you look around this forum you'll probably see another thread started by another group of cachers who are bidding on the same pile of ammo boxes. They are probably also wondering why these things are bidding so high.

We are very sorry for your loss.

I've had the same problem with our Venture HC. It only happens when the batteries are weak. I've replaced the batteries and the problem was solved.