Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic Coverage of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico (DVD)

by Garmin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8 x 7.8 x 1.5 inches ; 0.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001RYK0JE
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: 010-11315-00
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,119 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

  #7 in

  Electronics > GPS & Navigation > GPS Mapping Software

• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

Product Description

Outdoor enthusiasts: your adventure is waiting — in vivid detail. TOPO U.S. 24K Southwest DVD brings you the highest level of topographic detail available, with maps comparable to 1:24,000 scale USGS maps. These highly detailed maps on DVD include terrain contours, topo elevations, summits, routable roads and trails, parks, coastlines, rivers, lakes and geographical points — and they also display 3-D terrain shading on compatible devices. With routable roads and trails in metropolitan and rural areas, getting to your destination is easy by creating point-to-point routes on compatible units. With this purchase, you'll receive topographic detail for Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. You'll also receive BaseCamp™ software for managing data on your GPS and computer, playing back routes and tracks, geotagging photos and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, Not Great, August 5, 2009

By	21st Century Hermit (Colorado) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic Coverage of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico (DVD) (DVD-ROM)

Pros:
Route-able Roads and Trails
24K Topo Detail

Cons:
Dark Colors and Poor Contrast
Missing Trails
Trails aren't named
No BLM or State Lands

My comments are limited to Colorado and I'm comparing the Garmin maps to another 24K topo set by Above the Timber. On a recent 3-day backpack I used the Above the Timber maps 95% of the time, Garmin 5%, readability was the key. The good news, both map sets reside inside my Garmin GPS and switching is a breeze.

In my opinion a 24K Topo is a back country map used for foot, horse or other slow travel. This map set combines the excellent route-able Navteq highways and also route-able trails, that's slick. However due to an overly dark set of color choices, it's very difficult to see the trails to make an intelligent trip and/or route selection. Having the routing engine choose your route based on time or distance misses the human dynamic of most scenic. Not seen a routing engine that knows my scenic values . . . it'll happen someday.

The Garmin maps do not show BLM or state lands, a very big deal in Colorado. Also the trails lack either names and/or numbers, kind of like having a highway map w/o names or numbers, huh? Names and/or numbers give you valuable clues as to where you're going, which you verify with occasional sign posts.

To understand my colors and contrast comment, you'll have to view the attached Nuvi screenshots. They're fuzzy, the Amazon import did that and I'm not sure why.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic DVD, August 24, 2009

By	AZ STARGAZR (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic Coverage of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico (DVD) (DVD-ROM)

I recently purchased a Garmin 60CSx GPS unit,and living in the Southwest thought it necessary that I have 24k topographic maps for the areas that I travel. It's common knowledge that the base maps that come with every manufacturer's GPS units basically are useless. I thought that getting the Garmin maps at 24k resolution would solve some of those issues. I ordered the Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic, DVD version, available here on Amazon.com at Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic Coverage of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico (DVD).
I was fairly disappointed that even at high zoom levels there's a lack of detail that I thought should be present. Considering the high price that you have to pay for the maps I would think that Garmin would research and add additional map detail themselves. On the plus side, it was easy to use the Garmin MapSource software to choose and load the maps or areas that I desired.
I would hope that someday soon Garmin would make available maps at a reasonable price.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Match For GPS HCX Series, June 7, 2009

By	Towhee (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k Southwest Topographic Coverage of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico (DVD) (DVD-ROM)

I purchased this for my Garmin Vista HCX and the two make an unbeatable combo. I can be on a trail, in the mountains and request a route home. The route will state something like this:
Go north to forest trail 122 (4 miles).
Turn right on forest trail 122.
Go to farm road CO123 (12 miles).
Turn right on I25 (43 miles)
... Arrive at home (123 miles 6.5 hours)
The miles listed are the trail miles and not straight line distance. When I have passed a national forest sign that says Jones Park 1.7 miles and checked the distance on my GPS it matches exactly.
The find feature is good as well. Want to know if there are any hot springs in your hiking area? Do a find on "Hot Spring" and the nearest one will be listed and you can plot a route to it as shown above.
Overall, a very good product that I highly recommend.