[pct-l] GPS Recommendations

[Halfmile]

Herb,
I think the Garmin Vista HCx is probably the best GPS for most hikers.
It's small, has excellent battery life and can hold essentially an
unlimited number of waypoints if you load them as custom POIs. You
will need to purchase Garmin's Topo software (not to be confused with
NG TOPO!, which is different). You should be able to send/recieve
waypoints from NG TOPO!, however.

I own several Garmin GPSs and am happy with them all. I am not so
optimistic about Magellan as AsABat. I have never owned any but have
read so many bad reports about the Triton I don't have any desire to.
Also be aware that the Magellan company was sold a few months ago. I'm
not sure exactly what this means, but if you do go with a Magellan
unit, definitely get it from REI with it's liberal return policy.

Basic non-mapping units like the Geko 201 (or the similar Foretrex 101
which weighs less, has better battery life, and cost less) can be a
powerful navigation tool in a tiny package.  These have a limited 500
waypoint capacity, but for a section hiker or a thru hiker comfortable
using UTM grids on maps, it can be very powerful navigation aid. The
Foretrex 101 weighs 2.5 oz with lithium batteries.

-Halfmile




On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 4:03 PM, herbstroh at charter.net
<herbstroh at charter.net> wrote:
> I have an old Garmin Vista GPS unit that has finally bitten the dust. My
> software is the National Geographic TOPO software. The Garmin worked ok,
> but occassionaly did not mesh with TOPO.
>
> Any recommendations on a new, reasonably light unit that works easily with
> TOPO?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Herb
>
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