Topo maps for Garmin

For sharing..

Hmm, when I search my nuvi 3597 for Chaco, two locations are pulled up. And in Basecamp on my PC, I see three. The biggest is what you want to visit and is the one listed as being along NM 57 near Nageezi. It has many ruins, the visitor center, trails, etc. The smallest (about 1mi x 0.5mi) has no roads listed and Google Earth shows no roads present. The middle-sized one listed as being near NM 371 east of Crownpoint shows one dead end road into it. I wonder if your search with your nuvi showed you the tiny area with no roads.

I expect the place you want to visit as I did is the large one with NM 57 passing through it. Zoomed in, my nuvi 3597 shows not only the roads but also the trails, and since the 3597 has the DEM map overlay, it even approximates a topo "look." My nuvi 3597 Map Detail is set to Normal.

I spent a large portion of one day walking around the amazing ruins and think you'll love it as well. It was the elegance of the ruins and the number and size of ruins that was so overwhelming. At the time, I was driving a Ford Explorer stick with 4WD and came in on the worst of the access roads. At least when I was there, the access from the north was pretty good but access from the south was quite rutted. It's good that it has a campground as the nearest lodging as far as I can tell is over 60 miles away over bad roads some of the time.

Try using your nuvi with City Navigator 2018.10 again and when searching for Chaco, select the one mentioning NM 57 and Nageezi, the biggest of the three separate locations that I expect are part of the park lands. You should find the roads and trails shown on your nuvi. If trying to route with the nuvi, when near the park you probably will want to uncheck the Avoidance for unpaved roads.

Been using the much older TOPO map from Garmin with mixed results.

Thanks for reminding me about gpsfiledepot.com. It's been years since I checked out their massive map offferings. I got one for county lines and names for when we used to travel in the rv. I'll check it out.

Also, glad to learn about another national historical park to put on our bucket list!

Well, the roads in the "Historical" park do not show up on the 3597 until you zoom in to the 0.5 mile level. At 0.8 mi. they are gone. This does not allow you to "see" a logical way into the park on the 3597. Trails do not display until you zoom in to 0.3 mi. And it pays to check out a park before going, as NM 57 is permanently closed coming from the North. See:
https://www.nps.gov/chcu/planyourvisit/trafficandtraveltips....
Notice the warning just above the map on the page, as well - it gave me a chuckle.

I suspect that you would get different results when you are actually in the park and driving. When we visited Death Valley last year, I seem to remember that I could zoom out and see every road (including dirt roads) in the lower half of the park - doesn't happen when panning and zooming from my house in VA. I did not have a Topo map for CA.

I think the 3597 leaves out a lot of detail when "panning and zooming" to a different location. This probably has something to do with the refresh rate.

@cbwatts

Please visit the website before going. Some of the roads leading in are not recommended for RVs.
https://www.nps.gov/chcu/planyourvisit/directions.htm

GPSFileDepot seems to be a very useful site.

I installed topo maps from this site a few years ago on my hand held Garmin. It's been a while since I poked around on their site as well. Thanks for the reminder!

Have done similar to what others have with the topo maps. They provide a wealth of information and were very helpful at the time. I've since removed them and just keep the regular map on my Garmin.

I've been using GPS File Depot for many years to create trail maps. The site is definitely worth bookmarking. There is no fee involved but contributions are welcome to keep the site afloat. All their maps are legally downloadable and are contributed mostly by amateur cartographers.

A word of caution though. Although some of their maps are routable, many are not. Don't expect your GPS to route you to the nearest gas station while navigating with one.

BTW, congratulations on your C.O.W. award this week Metricman!

An interesting addition to GPSFileDepot maps are the Open Street Maps found at http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/. These is a little more complicated to download and install, but they are compatible with Garmin devices and BaseCamp.

Several nice things about the Open Street Maps:
1. Routable in both BaseCamp and the device
2. They do have some embedded POI's
3. They include trails in many preserves and park areas.

On my Garmin handhelds, I often switch back and forth between the Garmin Topo map, GPSFileDepot topo map, and the OpenStreetMap to see which has the better detail for a particular area.