GPS RecommendationsGarmin E-Trex Vista GPS ReviewI recently purchased a The Garmin Vista GPS receiver to navigate on my hikes. While paper maps have served fine in the past, finding the trailhead or deciding which of many side trails is the one I want is much easier using a GPS receiver. More importantly, when I scout our hikes in advance I use the GPS receiver to record my track so that I can transfer the path to my maps before printing them - giving me a better customized map to hand out on group hikes. With Garmin US TOPO MapSource CD Rom (reviewed below) this receiver will display topographic maps (as well as other maps when loading other packages). The links above are to Amazon.com, where I purchased my receiver. The price tends to vary as different specials are offered, so you might want to shop around. You will likely have to add the item to your cart on Amazon or on other sites to see the actual price as this is they discounters are able to get around the rules from Garmin setting minimum advertised prices (i.e. they can be sold cheaper but the sites are not allowed to advertise their lower price). An excellent price for the package (receiver plus MapSource topo combined) is around $350. You might be able to find the receiver alone for about $260 after various rebates, and the MapSource Topo software for around $90. If you want to spend less on a GPS unit, you may want to try the lower end Garmin Etrex Legend GPS available for around $150 after various rebates. To see a review of the different receivers in the Etrex line go here.
Mapping Software ReviewsGarmin US TOPO MapSourceIf you want to download topographic maps into your E-trex Vista GPS you will need the Garmin Garmin US TOPO MapSource CD Rom. Unfortunately this software is not the particularly good at printing topographic maps. This package contains contour data and points of interest suitable for loading into your GPS, but it not capable of generating printed copies of the USGS topographic maps you might get on paper. The user interface for the PC based application also leaves much to be desired. Personally, I consider this this package as having the sole purpose of downloading maps into my GPS, and uploading tracks and waypoints so that I can save them for use at a later time. For generating paper maps and overlaying uploaded tracks onto the maps I use National geographic topo software described later on this page.Garmin MetroGuide MapSourceThough not specifically for hiking, if you get the Garmin Vista GPS, I highly recommend the Garmin MapSource MetroGuide CD ROM. As with the MapSource TOPO CD rom, the PC interface is awful. However, the usefulness of the data it allows you to download to your GPS is well worth the cost. You can download street-maps for any region of the United State, as well as listings of businesses, restaurants, hotels, etc. Once you have identified which maps to download to your GPS, from your GPS, you can enter the name of an establishment and it will give its location. You can even ask questions like "where are the nearest restaurants", and get a listing by type of cuisine, or ask where to find the nearest supermarket. Using the PC interface you can generate a turn-by-turn route and download the route to your GPS. From the GPS itself, you can find locations, but it will not generate a route. From the GPS, it will plot the location on the map so you can eyeball the route from the streets also shown on the map, and it will tell you the direction and distance if you could travel in a straight line.National Geographic TOPO! state series mapsI use to buy individual topographic maps for the areas in which I would hike. After using them many times, they end up ragged and need to be replaced. About a year ago I bought the National Geographic Topo Los Angeles area map series. I likes it so much that a few months later I bought the entire National Geographic TOPO! California map series. The National Geographic Topo software and data sets allow you to print topographic maps for the covered region. You can customize these maps - printing just the area you want and scaling the region to fit your page. You can also overlay your planned route before printing.You can also upload tracks and waypoints from your GPS to overlay your actual route following a hike. This feature is particularly useful to me, allowing me to record a track when I "try out" a new hike, then printing a map with the track from this first run to distribute when I lead a group hike "for real". Most of the state series maps list for 99.95 but you should be able to find them for around $80-85 if you get them on sale. There are map sets available for smaller regions (like the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara region, which I originally purchased for $50), but I don't recommend these smaller regions. If you want to interface these smaller regions with a GPS, you will need to separately purchase the TOPO USA series for about another another $30, at which point you would have been better off with the State Series maps that include the GPS option standard. I have found that the State and smaller region series have different maps, depending on difference in publication dates of the particular software chosen. The differences in the maps may make some maps better in either option. For example, the Millard Canyon map (1995) in the California State series has too much info, making some details harder to read, but the 1994 map in the Los Angeles regional series is less cluttered. The map scales for level 5 (most detail) is a little different using the regional vs. state series software, but when magnified to correspond, details seem similar. Other differences are that the regional series does not offer shading, the state series does. The state series maps have some maps that extend a little beyond state boundaries, in particular, in my version of the California series, the entire Lake Tahoe region is covered, including those parts in Nevada. Maptech TNAV topoMapTech's TNAV Topo (California) software provides similar functionality as that in the National Geographic TOPO map series. I downloaded their demo and found the software to have similar functionality. The maps printed in their demo region (parts of the Appalachian Trail) appear more crisp than the maps in the California State series for National Geographic TOPO, but I do not know if this is representative of all of their regions or whether they might have selected their best region for the demo. Unfortunately, since I have not used their California map serious I can not provide a side by side comparison of the two. Having only "really" used the National Geographic offering, I have to recommend that one since I know that that one meets my needs very well.
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