triturtle

Wow, great information and hopefully a fix. I just ordered one from PCNation.com ($228.40, no tax, free shipping) as I just couldn't justify $500 for the upcoming Colorado. I am looking forward to the improved high sensitivity receiver and electronic compass that my etrex lengend CSx didn't have.

Update on my earlier post. My topo east map won't unarchive on my mac book, but I'll keep working on it. Here is my impression of Bobcat so far (using city navigator and US topo west maps). 1. The maps look a little cartoonish - sort of like yahoo maps 2. When I plugged in my etrex legend Cx it immediately recognized it and didn't ask to install, it just did it 3. When I transferred from the GPSr to the map it transferred waypoints and routes. As far as I can tell there is no setting to pick just waypoints - not a big deal Overall, it works just fine but I think it will be fine tuned a bit when the roll out the final product. I give it a 4 of 5 stars. This was the final hurdle in completely getting away from Windows. I can now dump my boot camp and parallels!

I just converted all of my maps and it went flawlessly except for my National Parks West maps. It crashed twice, not sure why.

One thing I would say is that there are a lot of utilities at are Garmin specific. Geocaching.com has a relatively new tool to upload the cache directly to your GPSr which is only for Garmin (at this time). Because of this, I would lean towards Garmin.

Garmin is set to announce "Bobcat" at the Mac World Expo next week. They and Apple will not say what it is, does anyone have any ideas? Strangley, the "hints" don't seem to point towards an OS X version of mapsource, but to an actual device. I an intrigued and can't wait to find out what it is.

I use mapsource via parallels (windows XP) on my macbook (with etrex legend csx) and it works flawlessly. The only bad thing is I only gave my Windows XP partion 10GB which isn't enough to load up all my maps so I have to swap map discs. Hopefully this is the year garmin finally makes due on its promise for a OS X version.

WOW - thanks everybody for all the great information! As soon as I posted my question, I realized that some GPSr units don't have maps. I guess I am spoiled. Now... how to get Garmin to put out a MAC OS X version of mapsource so I don't have to run WIN XP via bootcamp on my macbook?!?!?!

I'm heading to Germany and Nederlands in the fall and want to do some geocaching while I'm there. I am not interested in spending $299 for Garmin's City Navigator Europe software. It is just too expensive for a one-time use. Can I download caches onto my Garmin eTrex Legend CSx without having any local maps? I figure if I can at least see the caches on a blank yellow screen then I can do some caching even though it may make things more difficult.

I've explained geocaching a few times when stumbled upon while caching. However, my favorite story is when I made sure NOT to have to explain it. I was out on a trail when along came a 90+ year old man. He snuck away from his retirement home because he still loved to hike (shuffle). He was actually a trail guide in his earlier days. I quickly hid my GPS with the panic of having to explain not only geocaching but the GPS to the elderly man.

Thanks for the tips. My wife and I are staying at the Marriott in Waikaloa Village. First time to the Island so we are ready to explore. My wife isn't as adventurous a hiker as I am (I will hike almost anything), but game for a good hike. We have a week on the island so can probably use geocaching to explore places we might not normally go to.

My wife and I are heading to the Big Island in April and looking for some help/hints from anyone who has taking their GPS to the big island. Q1. Is the GARMIN MapSource US TOPO 24K National Parks worth getting? We plan to hike at least one day in Volcano National Park plus I live in Colorado so having the whole west region would come in useful down the road. Q2. I am staying on the west side of the island (north of Kona) but plan to hike all over. I've been kicking around moving from the etrex legend Cx up to the 60CSx. Is there enough tree cover to substantially screw up reception of the satellites? Q3. Any recommended caches on the island? Thanks in advance.

I have a Legend Cx and thinking of upgrading to the 60CSx. I've been pretty happy with the Legend and love it size, but it seems like it isn't that accurate especially under tree cover. Is the 60CSx that much more accurate? If so, anybody know a comparison about how much more accurate it is?

CLICK HERE to view Sputnik 57's "Frequently Asked Questions about Garmin Map60CS (and Similar) GPS Receivers" map section. Numbers 8 & 9 answer your questions directly Read the whole thing when you get a chance - lots of great tips and tricks about these units collected from the forums. thanks.

One idea is to have motorized and non-motorized categories. Those younger and/or more fit could do it via bike and those older/less fit could use a car, etc. Another option is to make sure that it takes more brains than brawn to figure out and find all the caches. The other idea would be to build age categories and then adjust times but that gets pretty complicated.

On a big day I'll carry my Gerber multi-tool and the freebie flashlight that came with a pack of AA batteries (takes 1). Great multi-tool, nearly worthless flashlight. Normally I like to go out completely unprepared and then get mad at myself for being an idiot.

I am thinking of creating a geocaching challenge and wondering what people think of this idea. I want to put out 6 "clue" caches - each one would give one missing coordinate to the final cache. I would assign each team a designator 1-6 which would give them a different path from cache to cache so that every team was not following the same path. Each Cache would give a clue to the next cache and a coordinate to the final. I would like to add in a CITO factor to the game as well. X lbs of trash collected removed Y number of minutes to your time. This will give people the opportunity to take some time to collect trash to lower their time. I would also like to offer event coins for sale, which would be about $4-6 depending on how cheaply I can get them made. Would you attend an event like this? Ideas to make it better or more fun?

Fun show. I would say it was inspired by the film National Treasure, but took most of the practical parts of the hunt from geocaching. When compared to what Mark Burnell did (morphing hard core adventure racing into the tv show Survivor), I'd say it does a pretty good job. I would like to see a bit more of the struggle to figure out the hard clues but that might not make the most exciting viewing. Maybe the caches could contains stink bug milkshakes that they have to eat? No,... wait,... that has already been done.

I picked up mine years back as my alias in the alt.rec.sports.triathlon newsgroup. Since I was by far the slowest member of my triathlon club, triturtle seemed appropriate. I also use it on ebay. Too bad the masked muggler is too cheap to be a premium member because his story is pretty funny!

Last month I was in NYC so I decided to nab a few caches in Central Park. I was surprised at how few muggles were around a few of them, but a couple was laying on a blanket almost on top of one. Since I don't get to NYC that often I was determined to get this cache. I called a caching buddy and he gave me a great tip that worked. I sat down near them and started talking to myself. They left shortly and I got my cache. They gave me a funny look when I walked past them later as I was leaving the park, but it was worth it. The masked muggler is full of all kinds of helpful hints!

Unimog or mountain bike depending on the circumstances.

Wow, I feel better about my minimalist nature now. My CRB (crown royal bag) contains: Pen Note Pad GPSr Any trinkets from last find to be placed in next find - including travel bugs I also like to hike through swamps, thickets, woods, and poison ivy with shorts and sandals and never use mosquito repellant. However, living at 5200' I also put on plenty of SPF48 sunscreen.

I feel better that I am not alone in this addiction. Every day I want to go out caching and find ways to get away to do it. Yep, before I go anywhere I check google earth to see what caches are about. I'd say I need help, but I don't want it. The term "Muggler" is now used in my office as a derrogatory term for anyone who does something stupid. The best part is that people using the term aren't even cachers! Yep, trying pick between a Toyota FJ and a Nissan Xterra. The price of the GPSr is now the tip of the iceberg!

I agree! My favorite cache so far was a four stage multi that took me a couple of weeks to find. I was in a race with a couple of other cachers to be FTF (i came in second). I met some great people along the way and really felt like I accomplished something when I finally found it. I would add that a theme to a multi is a great way to go. Base it on town history or something like that and the cachers that go through the work to find it will have found new areas they didn't know about and/or learned something along the way.

I found my best find this weekend. It is a Pirates of the Caribbean McDonalds toy telescope. Probably worth nothing to a normal person, but to a devout follower of FSM (www.venganza.org) it is priceless! Plus, only a few minutes after finding it I took a detour on my mountain bike and rode past "Pirates Park". Yarrrrrr

I won't give the cache name as it would be a spoiler. I found one that was hidden up in a metal art object in a grouping of several identical art objects. They had attached a metal loop to the bottom and strung clear fish line up over the top of the art object. Attached to the fish line was a tiny metal pill case (about .25" diameter and .75" long). You had to find the fish line, then pull it like lowering a flag and the pill case appeared and came down as you pulled the fish line. Very clever.