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1:24,000 topo maps for garmin gps?


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I got a shiny new Vista HCx to replace an ancient, original yellow eTrex. I love having the maps there when I'm hiking, but despite my initial excitement about having coverage of the entire US, I'm pretty disappointed with the detail on garmin's Topo USA maps. The only thing they've got with better detail is their national parks maps, but those cover very, very few places I'm likely to be hiking anytime soon.

 

Are there any Garmin-compatible 3rd-party maps equivalent to something like the 1:24k topo maps?

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No not for Garmin

 

The new magellan Tritions that are comming out in the fall will work the National Geographic maps

 

Wow. I guess I haven't paid close enough attention to the map software world-- I got that old etrex nearly a decade ago. Given how old consumer GPS is, I thought there'd be a thriving market in third-party map software by now, but to hear that there isn't anything at all is a bit of a surprise. I could have sworn I was seeing announcements for third-party garmin-compatible maps for places like Mexico just recently-- is it just the US that isn't covered?

 

The National Geographic maps are nice, but they're all raster maps, right? 1:100k it is, then. It's a lot better than no maps at all! Here's hoping for a new Garmin product with more detail.

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What you should have looked at / bought is the Delorme PN-20. Comes with Topo USA (way better topos than Garmin or Magellan), and you can buy (or I already had) Delorme 3D TopoQuads software ($100/state), and I can on put as many USGS 7.5 min Quads as my 2GB memory card can hold. Yes, because they are raster scanned, they get big. But I'm OK with maybe of half of Southern California on the unit. You can also (for a price) load up aerial pics (from Delorme, but $100 worth come with the unit). Does what it says. A tad slow at screen updates, but it's moving big chunks of data around. I'm very happy with it. P.S. I don't work for Delorme.

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There are 1:24K maps of Colorado available via third party. Some international third party maps may offer higher levels of detail too.

 

Here is the direct link for the 1/24 maps of Colorado: http://www.abovethetimber.com/GPSmaps.htm

 

I purchased these maps a few weeks ago and am very pleased. The software loads easily into Mapsource and are usable exactly like Mapsource. Roger (the owner/designer) provides fast customer service through email if necessary. My only complaint is that the maps are only available for Colorado, but that is probably because Roger is from Colorado.

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Good for Roger. It's good to see that someone is creating commercial maps for Garmin, but no credit to Garmin. As far as 24K topo, the only advantage is that it is routable vs USTopo. But don't get too excited by that because the trails and mapping is still way out of date and the routable routes are totally unreliable.

You can do what Roger has done, and create your own maps. This is the best route today for Garmin handhelds. Magellan is busting Garmins proprietary choke with the new units coming out in the fall. This is good news!

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I got a shiny new Vista HCx to replace an ancient, original yellow eTrex. I love having the maps there when I'm hiking, but despite my initial excitement about having coverage of the entire US, I'm pretty disappointed with the detail on garmin's Topo USA maps. The only thing they've got with better detail is their national parks maps, but those cover very, very few places I'm likely to be hiking anytime soon.

 

Are there any Garmin-compatible 3rd-party maps equivalent to something like the 1:24k topo maps?

 

There is a way to create your own TOPOs for anywhere in the world, i just found this site, it's practically brand new, and they give step by step instructions on how to go about creating and editing and downloading topos to your GARMIN. following them is a long process, and requires the downloading and installation of several other programs, but in the end, I'll take 10m resolution over 30m anyday.

 

http://home.cinci.rr.com/creek/garmin.htm#1

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There is a way to create your own TOPOs for anywhere in the world, i just found this site, it's practically brand new, and they give step by step instructions on how to go about creating and editing and downloading topos to your GARMIN. following them is a long process, and requires the downloading and installation of several other programs, but in the end, I'll take 10m resolution over 30m anyday.

 

http://home.cinci.rr.com/creek/garmin.htm#1

That site is actually years old. It gets updated every once in awhile as new information appears.

 

On that note, there are good maps close to 1:24k scale of Wyoming and Colorado:

http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_cotopo.html

http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_wytopo.html

 

more info in this thread: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=183357

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