Above the Timber

[Optimistic Paranoid]

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm shopping around for a GPS unit to buy for Christmas. I was looking at a 7" Garmin Nuvi model on Amazon. There were actually over 700 questions and answers about it. Being thorough (or anal, depending on your point of view, I guess) I was reading through them.

Somebody asked about using topographic maps on it. Now this is one of my pet peeves - that Garmin sells topographic maps, but they don't work on the street units.

Anyway, somebody answered the question by directing them to a company called Above the Timber. Turns out this small (one person?) Colorado company sells 1/24,000 topo maps that work with ANY Garmin unit. They are currently available for 6 western states - Washington, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Hopefully, if his company prospers, he'll add more in the future, would love to see NV, ID, WY and MT added.

Anyway, was wondering if anyone here was familiar with them, and could give a thumbs up or thumbs down? Thanks.

http://www.abovethetimber.com/

 

[brentbba]

Went thru the same thing you are a couple of years ago. Learned from someone that Garmin really wants to separate their on vs off road units. Basically they want you to own two units and have designed all their current products toward that end. Topo's won't work on their street units, as you have found out. I agree, that sucks. I ended up with a Montana. Not real happy with it for on road and it's just too small for effective topo off road use.

Was just looking at CyberMonday deals on a GPS for my daughter. She's been wanting one for quite some time now.

 

[BlkWgn]

have you considered a tablet of some form? I use a samsung tablet in the truck, with the same app on my phone for when I am out of the vehicle, and they automatically sync when I have signal. So I can mark a campsite on the tablet, get out of the truck and take a couple of photos of it on my phone, when they sync I have a waypoint with photo references for later. You also get a much larger and usually less expensive choice in maps.