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Bucho
10-15-2011, 17:22
I had a Garmin eTrex Vista Hcx for my thru hike of the AT this year. It worked-ish but I was rather dissapointed that it limited me to 10,000 track points. Now that would have been fine if I could load tracks from the memory card but infuriatingly it only has the ability to save tracks to the sd card, not to get them back.

As such it's accuracy was rather terrible. Can anyone tell me of a gps that will let me have a track with more points or load tracks from a memory card?

leaftye
10-15-2011, 19:12
Do what PCT hikers do. Break up files with more than 10,000 tracks into separate files.

SassyWindsor
10-16-2011, 01:14
My File Size (compressed): 8mb

4560 tracks with avg of 60 track points each = approx 273600 track points

125 track points per mile of trail (avg).

Bucho
10-16-2011, 01:49
My File Size (compressed): 8mb

4560 tracks with avg of 60 track points each = approx 273600 track points

125 track points per mile of trail (avg).

What gps will let you have 4560 tracks loaded?

Bucho
10-16-2011, 02:13
Do what PCT hikers do. Break up files with more than 10,000 tracks into separate files.

My problem is what I'm supposed to do after that. 10,000 track points is my entire memory for track points, I can break that number up between as many as 20 tracks but it still isn't enough accuracy for something like the AT or PCT

leaftye
10-16-2011, 12:48
My problem is what I'm supposed to do after that. 10,000 track points is my entire memory for track points, I can break that number up between as many as 20 tracks but it still isn't enough accuracy for something like the AT or PCT

Yes it is. Look at the tracks Halfmile has done for the PCT. Each section has its own track file, usually with nearly 10,000 track points per file. All those track points per section is much more accurate than any hiking gps unit realistically offers. All the files can be loaded at the same time, which gives you around 300,000 track points for the entire PCT.

SassyWindsor
10-16-2011, 16:57
What gps will let you have 4560 tracks loaded?



I never said my GPS held all the data. I use microSD cards.

Bucho
10-16-2011, 23:07
Which gps will let me use microSD cards like that?

The Old Fhart
10-16-2011, 23:41
Most hikers want a small, very lightweight, and cheap GPS (that generally has fewer features) but the Garmin 62s I have will autosave tracks to the internal memory (I have 1.8GB free) and I have added an 8GB micro SD card with 1.4GB of street routing maps with POIs loaded for all of North America (Can., U.S., Mex.). One days worth of detailed tracking would probably use a MB or so, giving me enough internal storage for tracks of several long distance trails, and still have a few GBs left over.

leaftye
10-17-2011, 10:24
Which gps will let me use microSD cards like that?

I have an Oregon 550, but I think most Garmin gps units allows this, except for the base models.