bmirak

It's not about directions. Routing allows you to measure exact distance along the trail to your destination (and if the device is smart enough, you can even get a good ETA). Otherwise, the device simply gives you distance as the crow flies. I agree that when hiking it most important to observe the nature around you, but I'd like to be able to check my device occasionaly for elevation and distance to my next stop. In the same manner, routing in mapsource is useful for planning hikes. Hiking with GPS is the perfect fusion of nerd and naturalist.

I have experienced the same problem. The routes you assemble in mapsource just don't seem to translate well to the device - they end up as straight lines. Sometimes, you can get the routing to work if you build the route using your device, but you need to use a lot of intermediate points in the route to stay with the trail. Even if you can get the routing to work, it is pretty worthless. I've found, at least in Rocky Mountain National Park, that the trails in U.S. Topo 24k are really inaccurate. When I've tried to hike with routing in the past, my location is so far off the "trail" that the device is constantly recalculating. If you really want to use the routing in 24k, you'll probably just have to abandon the actual trails and follow Garmin's "trail." You probably won't even sniff the real trail for much of the hike. Other than the trails, 24k is a really nice mapset, and it's not a locked mapset so you can transfer to multiple devices (yeah Garmin!) Maybe the trails are more accurate in other parks, you'll have to let me know. Where are you hiking?

I've found my solution! Much cooler than attaching it to my hat, and no risk of brain cancer, either. The problem will be finding an antenna with a long enough cable - I'll want to loft it up there 20-30 feet for optimum accuracy.

I'm kind of obsessed with recording super-accurate tracklogs when hiking in the mountains. I always carry my 60csx in my hand while hiking to improve reception. Would an external antenna - say, clipped to my hat - significantly improve my accuracy, or would it just make me look like more of a geek?

Well, I'm going to start a site like yours for Rocky if I can make this work. It's a great idea! As people send you new tracks, do you just roll them all into one map? How does that work? Do you keep some sort of master template for editing in GPSMapEdit, and then just re-compile each new version with Mapcenter? Are these free programs? If shareware, what are the limitations?

I hope the transparent map really does take precedence because my custom trails may be very close to the Garmin trails in some spots. Are you making full-blown topos for Calgary, or just trail overlays like we're discussing here?

Tell me more about how the routing works. Do I have to somehow incorporate my waypoints into the custom map in order to route to them? I hope not. Do my waypoints have to be right on the trail for the routing to work? Will my 60csx automatically route using the custom map as long as it is on top (as opposed to the topo 24k trails)? I suppose the downside is that while the custom map is on top I won't be able to move my pointer to a contour line on the underlying topo map and have it tell me the elevation - but that's not a real big deal. Does adding a custom map slow performance of the unit? My custom map would probably be 100 square miles but it would only contain trail data (if, as I hope, that's all I need for routing).

Now we're getting somewhere. Are you telling me I can make a transparent map of just a trail system (created based on tracklogs) and lay that on top of my U.S. Topo 24k map on my 60csx? And I can make that trail map routable? How difficult is this to do? Please teach me your mapmaking wizardry!

Freudian Slip? Yeah, maybe we can put together a class action lawsuit (JOKING)!

I love my Garmin 60csx. The Garmin U.S. Topo 24k maps are another story. Elevations, features, and waypoints are fairly accurate, but the trails - at least in Rocky Mountain National Park - are way off. The trails can be off by 300 - 500 feet, and this isn't a poor reception issue. I've come across many places in my hiking where Garmin has drawn trails on the wrong side of streams! That creates a couple of problems for me: (1) It's tough to follow a "route" when Garmin thinks you're 500 feet off the trail. It keeps recalculating! (2) When I really do depart from a trail to go cross-country, I'd like to be able to rely on the 60csx to navigate to another point on the trail. Can't do that if the trail is drawn in the wrong place. In the middle of the woods, it's not so easy to just look around and find the trail 100 feet away. The map needs to be right, darnit! I've contacted Garmin - they admit there's a problem but have no intention to update their maps (and can I blame them? The Topo maps are probably less than 1% of the mapping software Garmin sells). I like the Garmin topo data, and I sue don't want to go through the trouble of creating my own map from scratch. The question is, what can I do to fix the Garmin map? I know I can import and follow a track, but that doesn't fix the map. At the least, I'd like to redraw the trails correctly and - even better - make the correct trails routable. Can this be done?

You can get a Garmin 60csx on Amazon for under $300 - that's a pretty good value! You could also pick one up on eBay for around $320 (I am always surprised that people will pay more on eBay than they would at a reputable store).

I think the only difference is that NT has better file compression, allowing you to fit more maps on your unit, but NT is not compatible with all Garmin products. NT is compatible with the 60csx. I think NT is a no-brainer if you have a compatible model. Anybody know anything different?

Saving to the card is essential for detailed tracks on the 60csx. The limitation of this, however, is that your 60csx can't use that data until you convert it on your PC. That means you can't use the card data in the field for trackback. However, even when writing detailed data to the card, the 60csx still saves the track to the onboard memory (absent elevation and timestamp data, which doesn't matter for trackback use) - it is simply limited to 500 points. So, you can create a .01 mile detailed track that is 5 miles long in the onboard memory and use it for trackback. The Colorado is superior in allowing you to save much more track data to the onboard memory, but this isn't enough of a problem for me to ditch my 60csx (especially given some of the Colorado's negatives). I rarely need more than 5-miles of detailed trackback on my off-trail hikes. If I do, I just cut down to .02 mile increments.

I currently own a 60csx. I do a lot of off-trail hiking and I use my GPS primarily for (1) hiking navigation, (2) measuring distance to waypoints, (3) monitoring elevation gain, and (4) recording highly-detailed (.01 mile) tracks. I also use it for road navigation. These new Colorado units have me torn. I really like the shaded elevations and the 3D-View looks cool, plus the larger screen and supposedly better handling. However, I am really concerned about battery life and being able to read the screen. I've also seen some other complaints on this board about the CO from other 60csx users - though I think these mainly apply to geocaching? I heard another complaint that you cannot upload custom waypoint symbols to the CO? Is that true? I also don't like losing the SirfStarIII chipset. Legitimate concern? Can you really not "relocate waypoint here" with the CO? Based on the little I know (not much) - the CO strikes me as "more toy than tool" when compared to the 60csx. Do you think replacing my 60csx with a CO would really be an upgrade?