<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Jack,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I used the 24k maps on DVD this year to hike from Chama to Grand Lake. Yes the maps are excellent. There is also a lot of other data (I think it comes from Google Maps) about nearest restaurants, accommodation, stores,gas stations etc etc.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I used Jonathans Google Earth trail map to get the trackpoints for my hike (about 6000 points) then I loaded the points as a series of saved tracks (each 500 points) to a blank SD memory card.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">As others have said it saves hours per day. I used to GPS continuously leaving it on all day. I managed to get 3-4 days for a set of lithium batteries. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">At the end of each day I had the actual track and data on altitudes and distance hiked, I recorded (wrote) these in my journal. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The advantage of leaving the GPS on is that I could check immediately if in doubt so my location was always visible against the 24k base map. This was great at unmarked junctions. (not many were sign posted).</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I didnt have to wait for the GPS to warm up and zoom in. I was saved from errors many times. Jonathan's track is quite accurate mostly. I rarely used his paper maps except to get a larger overview each day of what is ahead, this is not easy o the small screen</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The Vista Screen is easy to see even in daylight. I think the Colorado is not so good (according to some reviews).</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I use a Macintosh and Garmin Basecamp works very well on the Mac. I use a web based program called GPS visualiser to convert Google Earth kmz files to Garmin gpx. <a href="http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/"><font color="#0029ed" style="color: #0029ed"><u>http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/</u></font></a> This site allso allows you to compress tracks into a fixed number of points (very useful). I didnt use the Wolf Guides, except before the hike I did mark water locations and some distances on Jonathan's maps.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The DVD allows you to select just those maps you want on your GPS and it provides a place (Basecamp) to upload and download your waypoints.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The problem with Garmin is that the manual is a bit sketchy and does not give examples and ways to use the GPS.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I am hoping to return in 2010 to hike more of the CDT, possibly New Mexico. I will again use my GPS.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">best regards</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Aussie Dave</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Canberra Australia.</font></div><div><br></div>
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