GPS Tracklog » Topo maps

Garmin Trailhead series–AT & PCT

Rich Owings — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:58:17 +0000

Garmin has rolled out a new 24K topo map collection, the Trailhead Series, starting with two titles — the Appalachian Trail (AT) and the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). No word yet on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), which isn’t as well mapped, so its arrival may not be imminent.

The maps include 1:24,000 scale coverage their entire length, with the trail being fully routable. Public land boundaries are also included. Prices are $49.99 for a download or microSD card; looks like I’ll be springing for the AT, which is close enough to me that I drive right by it every day.

Improved map controls for new Garmin handhelds

Rich Owings — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:35:43 +0000

Garmin rolled out several new updates yesterday for the Colorado, Dakota and Oregon series. There were a few fixes, but I want to concentrate on them adding BirdsEye control to profiles. I’m not really sure if you could do this with other map types before; regardless though, I want to point out the granular map controls now available to users of these units, allowing you to easily switch between map types.

You can see from the image above that I’ve created profiles for the following map types:

Topo US 2008 – This is Garmin’s 1:100,000 scale topo map, pictured above at right
24K Topo – For this I’m using free maps available from GPS File Depot
BirdsEye – This is Garmin’s new aerial imagery
24K USGS Topo – I’m using TopoFusion Pro to send these to my Oregon; they are created as Garmin Custom Maps

You can create custom Profiles on the Oregon series via Setup > Profiles > Create New Profile, then tap the new profile to edit the name. Then enable the profile and go to Setup > Map > Map Information. Enable the map you want for the profile and disable the rest. On your main menu, you may want to move Profile Change up. Do this by going to Setup > Main Menu; tap Profile Change and then tap an icon to trade places with.

Links for the new firmware and a discussion of the update can be found at Groundspeak.

Garmin international topo maps

Rich Owings — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:54:33 +0000

A lot of new topo map products have shown up on Garmin’s website. Some of these may have been available for awhile, but most appear to be new. I’ll also note that they seem to be different than the offerings from Garmin’s long running third-party MapSource developer program. In addition to the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Australia, I’m now seeing: