Garmin Etrex Vista

[ladyhawke63]

As a newcomer to Geocaching (35 found todate), not sure if I have my GPS set right, my hubby bought me a Garmin Etrex Vista for my birthday and set it up for me before hand. but the problem is that unlike a car satnav, it only seems to work in straight lines, so if i set it to find a geocache it will give me the directions for that in a straight line, regardless of where the footpath takes me. I know that after a while the cache and footpath will meet, but does seem to send me off in the wrong direction at times, too. Also one of the geocaches i have found, before you could log the find, you had to produce a "bread crumb" trail of the paths, which if done correctly looked like a balloon, well mine looked more like a triangle all straight lines and not balloon like at all. Can anyone either confirm that this is correct, or give me some advise as to how to set my GPS up to use footpaths. :confused:

[martybartfast]

You can't do routing with footpaths on the basemaps, the basemaps don't have footpaths anyway.

You can purchase Topo maps, which does have footpaths, but even then I don't think it will do routing for footpaths.

You can download free OSM maps (with some footpaths), see

http://sites.google.com/site/talkytoasteruk/ukmaps

for details, but I don't think they will route footpaths either.

Bottom line is the GPS shows you the direction and distance to the cache, but you have to follow the paths in a roundabout way to get there, for which you may need a regular map (or one of the two maps above on the GPS).

I've had many occasions where I've come to a fork in a path and had to decide which one to take, then had to double back having got it wrong.

[Bear and Ragged]

Also one of the geocaches i have found, before you could log the find, you had to produce a "bread crumb" trail of the paths, which if done correctly looked like a balloon, well mine looked more like a triangle all straight lines and not balloon like at all. Can anyone either confirm that this is correct, or give me some advise as to how to set my GPS up to use footpaths. :confused:

Yes, it is possible that the trail is more of a triangle than a balloon. Happens if the GPS looses 'fix' on the satellites as you walk along.

As far as I am aware, no GPS or SatNav will guide you along a footpath.

[ladyhawke63]

Thanks - at least now i don't have to tell the other half that he's not set it up properly. Will keep going, and hopefully with get use to it in time. Thanks again.:applause:

[zwei ormers]

We had fun 'straightlining' to a cache over 1.2km of suburbs and fields last week on holiday due to no map - had to bend down a thin tree branch to cross a stream at one stage!

[Shadeyman]

You can purchase Topo maps, which does have footpaths, but even then I don't think it will do routing for footpaths.

The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSX uses Mapsource Topo maps and will route you along them. £373 from blokesstuff "dot" com.......

[Shadeyman]

I find maps from the site linked below work very well with my Vista and allow me to route to caches using the roads instead of direct(as the crow fly's), give it a try..

http://gpsmapsearch.com