# Great Divide Route - GPS?



## tacticalathletes (Apr 10, 2012)

Bought a Garmin Etrex30 for planned summer trip on the GD mountain bike route. I also have the maps from ACA. I'm looking for advice on using the GPS. I've read the user manual and downloaded a few gpx routes and a track from rides posed by others. 

I'm really having trouble figuring out route or track navigation. It's nothing like a google map or car navigation. I purchased the US topo but not the citynav or other maps yet. The tracks are obscured by flags and other data to the point I can't even see the line on the map. Going back to basecamp software on my computer and it appears perfect. Advice based on your experiences with GPS? 

Advice if you've ridden the GDMBR with or without a GPS?


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## Bill in Houston (Nov 26, 2011)

might try this in the gps forum. 
there is a declutter feature, but i dont know what it does.


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## vikb (Sep 7, 2008)

You can turn down or turn off the details from the extraneous points of interest. You can also zoom in to more easily see the track which will likely push a lot of those flags and points of interest off the screen.

I would find some shorter day ride GPS routes/tracks in your area to practice with now. So that when you get to the GDR you aren't futzing with your GPS.


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## Dusza (Feb 18, 2011)

vikb said:


> You can also zoom in to more easily see the track which will likely push a lot of those flags and points of interest off the screen.


+1 what Vikb said. 
What I like to do is to convert routes to tracks using Basecamp, this way I only have a line on the GPS that I follow leaving all that flag clutter behind. But in order for this to work you'd have to prepare a fairly accurate route beforehand. Be aware of the maximum points per single route you can download to your GPS, I think it's 500 or so - otherwise your etrex will just cut the end of your route!


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## vikb (Sep 7, 2008)

Dusza said:


> Be aware of the maximum points per single route you can download to your GPS, I think it's 500 or so - otherwise your etrex will just cut the end of your route!


Garmin calls that their "surprise finish" feature. Allowing our users to explore new and unique terrain without the limitations of a preset route to restrict them!...:madman::nono:


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## aperture (Oct 18, 2010)

*GPS for GDR*

On the ACA maps pages at the top of the Great Divide page there is a link next to overview(gps) that gives you all the waypoints on the trail. I downloaded them to my Garmin Etrex. Hope this helps.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

It is entirely possible that the OP sent a track to the GPS as points, which would serve the purpose of converting all of the track points to waypoints and would most definitely clutter the screen severely. this is entirely possible because of the way the GPS handles the .gpx format. .gpx files on the computer can contain multiple types of data, but the GPS is unable to handle those types of files and it will create problems if you try to put them on the GPS.

You will have to heavily massage the data to get a trail as long as the GDR onto an etrex to deal with the data type limitations, the size limits of those data types, and the capabilities of the GPS.


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