[at-l] Okay, the question I thought I'd never be asking...

[nightwalker.at at gmail.com]

Good find, Jack. I would definitely recommend that one as an entry-level unit, if you weren't taking super long trips.

 Because of the lack of ability to use a Micro SDHC card, it will only take 24 MB of mapping. The Etrex Vista HCx holds a 4GB card, and my current mapset with highway and trail maps of the east coast uses over 2GB of that.

The only other negative is battery life. 15 hours versus 25 makes a big difference in how many batteries you'd have to carry on a long trip. On the AT, no big whoop. Two extra batteries (and ounces) between towns.

This may well be a very good choice for the OP. If his hike is only a few hundred miles, it will fit on there. If he's only going to turn on the unit and mark a point every 30 minutes or so, battery life isn't going to matter much.

High-quality Garmin trail maps are now free for the downloading. Thanks to Chase Davidson, I quit using the Garmin Topo 2008 trail maps and started using the freebies from http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/. The Garmin Topo 2008 maps are based on USGS 100k data. These are based on 24k (4 times the detail). They're also free. You just have to have a copy of Mapsource to send the mapset across.

Frank-----Original Message-----
From: camojack at comcast.net <camojack at comcast.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 1:19 AM
To: Mark Hudson <mvhudson at gmail.com>
Cc: at-l <at-l at backcountry.net>
Subject: Re: [at-l] Okay, the question I thought I'd never be asking...

It just so happens that I was looking on the REI site at GPS units yesterday. There was what looked to be a decent model (with good reviews) for $150:
http://www.rei.com/product/761620
-"Camo"

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Hudson" <mvhudson at gmail.com>
To: "at-l" <at-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Monday, May 3, 2010 5:11:46 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [at-l]  Okay, the question I thought I'd never be asking...

Just saw the less than glowing reviews on the one I linked.

So what's the best one I can get for less than $200? $250?

Thanks!

_______________________________________________ at-l mailing list at-l at backcountry.net http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/at-l