Garmin GPS question

[Jack Straw]

Hi all, I just picked up a Garmin e trex Vista CX (REI anniversary sale 25% off!) and was wondering if anyone had any experience with their Map Source programs. Specifically the national parks west topo edition (24k) and the US edition (100k), does anyone have any experience with these? Does the Natl. Pks. edition only cover the parks or does it include say the area between Kings canyon NP and Yosemite NP. Garmins web site doesn't give much info. I'm also interested in Calif road maps but again their web info is unclear as to what is what. Any info or personal experiences would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

[Shawn]

Hello Jack,

A month or so ago I bought a new 60CSx along with the national parks west topo edition (24k) and city navigator maps. Here's what I found.

The west topo only covers the strict boundaries of the parks. For example, I was in the Ansel Adams Wilderness and the 24k topo shows little or nothing. When I switched over to the city navigator some major features showed up (lakes, streams, etc.). Funny to discover that the "city" map would show more.

On the plus side, the 24k topo does show more than I had expected (from reviews) when in the parks. The level of detail is fine and coupled with the use of NG Topo its a great tool.

I've found the message boards on Yahoo! and Groundspeak to be of terrific help with all of the details using these maps and the GPS itself.

[Jack Straw]

Lost several post's here but I got all the info. Thanks to Shawn and Baff for the input.

[BSquared]

For all you Mac-heads out there, there's an excellent, inexpensive program called "MacGPS pro" http://macgpspro.com/index.html. I don't have a GPS with mapping capability, so I'm not sure how well that part of the system works, but for going the other way (GPS to maps) and for presetting waypoints and so on, the software works very well. The company also sells CDs with maps, but most of the the maps I need are available at various online sites for free.

-B2