jon Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 The Iranians "hijacking" the most sophisticated drone in our arsenal inspired me, and I said to myself "If they can live in the space age, so can I". So I bought my first GPS, a Garmin Oregon 450. So I don't know anything about GPS software. I've read on here that there are some free options versus shelling out $100 for the TOPO maps from Garmin. I guess National Geographic has maps too. So, what are people using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Water Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 (edited) i've had my gps for a few years and managed to wrangle info into it that helped me in the field, but, I'm no expert. I'm going to assume it came with some basic software (mapsource or something). www.redtrails.com has an extensive amount of trails. I think you can also download something on their site that allows you to get an entire trail map (ie all their trails) and load that as a map in mapsource. Whether that can then be sent to your GPS in totality or you just select certain trails you want, I'm unsure. you do have to make an account there, I'm pretty sure, but, they are a benign organization. additionally raised_by_pikas had a comprehensive and helpful procedure I used when getting some maps for some trip I took. http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1018789/24k_topos_and_routes_on_Garmin my gps can probably do 50 more things than I know it can. helpful that is has full sunset/sunrise/dawn/dusk and moon phase built into it--thats helpful Edited December 15, 2011 by Water Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yikes Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 Free or demo options that I like are: Hillmap.com and Topofusion. Both allow you to export waypoints or routes but probably will not directly upload to your GPS. However, you can probably use the free software that came with your device to upload. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BootsandPants Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 GPSFileDepot has a bunch of free maps for Garmin units. I like the 24k USGS overlay. I'm sure there are a ton of cool things you can do with other software too, but I'm simple. I just wanted topos without giving Garmin more money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon Posted December 16, 2011 Author Share Posted December 16, 2011 Thanks for the great links guys. Any mac users out there? Just starting to play around and it seems the newest Garmin software has been changed to not help in the import of non-Garmin maps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoboy Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Memory-Map for me. Lots of interesting options on http://freegeographytools.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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