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Would anyone be able to comment on how the following products compare in terms of map detail, quality and program features ? Particularly their coverage of hiking trails.

- National Geographic Topo! (plus the upcoming Topo ! Explorer, if anyone has seen it yet)
- DeLorme TopoUSA
- Garmin TOPO 24K (national parks/forests only)

I do realize that the Garmin product has limited coverage, and that maps from the other two cannot be loaded onto a Garmin GPSr.

For places where all three have coverage, however, they can be used to create routes or display tracks from a GPSr. So, which would be the best choice ? I haven't had luck finding decent comparisons.

Many thanks in advance.

Well, here is a start on a comparison. I don’t have the Garmin National Parks Topo 24K so I can’t comment specifically there. I do have NG Topo state series, Garmin Topo U.S. 2008 and DeLorme Topo USA 7. I have not worked with routes on any of them, I use mine for hiking. I carry a printed map of the area I plan to hike in addition to the GPS.

NG Topo is scanned USGS 100k (level 4) and 24k (level 5) maps with over view maps. For supported GPSs you can transfer waypoints back and forth and print nice 24k paper maps with tracks, waypoints and notes. It can receive tracks from a GPS fine, but essentially converts tracks into lines. Sending a line to a GPS involves making a GPS route (NG terminology) with a specified number of points and sending the result.

The Garmin Topo USA 2008 has vector maps that are generally equivalent to the 100k USGS maps for contour and hydrology detail. It can transfer tracks and waypoints to and from Garmin GPSs. You generally have a lot more control than NG Topo when editing tracks – remove bad points, join, break, etc. To preserve the tracks I transfer them to MapSource and then save a GPX file for import into NG Topo for map printing. I don’t print maps from Garmin Topo 2008.

It’s my understanding that the Garmin National Parks Topo 24K CD cover specific National Parks and uses the same map program…MapSource as the Topo USA 2008.

DeLorme Topo USA 7 has vector maps with contour detail equivalent to 24k quads and hydrology equivalent to 100k quads. You can transfer tracks and waypoints from any supported GPS, but can do much more with the PN-20. There is a bit of a learning curve, but you can do more with editing and managing waypoints, tracks and notes than the other program. You can also purchase raster 24k quads by state for use with the same mapping program. These are essentially the same maps as in NG Topo. The big benefit here is that you have one program which can print your waypoints, tracks and notes on either the 24k quads or the vector based map. And with the PN-20 you can transfer / load the Topo 7 vector maps, the 24k quads, tracks, waypoints and overlay maps onto the GPS. An example of an overlay maps would be one containing many trails, bike tracks, snowmobile routes, etc. Printed maps using either Topo 7 maps or DeLorme quads are very good.

As far as which has the best trails, I think that will depend on where you look…in my experience I have not noticed one as particularly better than another. Trails are easier to seen on the PN-20 than the 60CSx because of the color scheme Garmin uses.

I hope this helps.

Thank you much, Perry. This is very helpful.

I have Garmin's MapSource Topo USA 2008 and National Parks East 24k (which actually covers some national forests too). I am lucky to live not too far from a National Recreation Area and a National Forest, so the 24K set covers much of my area. GPS or not, I always hike with full-size, printed USGS 24K topo maps and a compass - and a great deal of route preparation. In wilderness areas trails can appear and vanish, and their location on the map is officially an estimate (though a very good one).

Garmin's MapSource National Parks 24K is a good product, though I'd still
prefer rasters similar to USGS 24K maps. It does contain some inaccuracies but, evidently, not gross ones. I haven't worked with National Geographic or DeLorme but, in its own right, MapSource is fairly flexible and straightforward. The ability to export waypoints, tracks and routes to
Google Earth is a superb feature. Exported data is saved to "Temporary
places" in Google Earth, which you can then save to My Places. On tracks,
you can turn off data points to leave only the path traveled, or switch
off the path to leave only the points.

Topo USA 2008 is a defective product, as others have reported elsewhere. The position of most roads (but not all) is slightly offset. While
traveling / walking on a road you are almost always shown as being
somewhat off road unless you zoom to >=500 feet or set the unit to lock on roads. Also, roads are shown with a similar offset vis-a-vis the terrain.
Fortunately, when viewing a track, the path of travel is shown correctly
in MapSource (though the road-terrain offset still holds). That is: points
selected in MapSource may be a little off-target in real life but data
collected by the GPS receiver usuall looks right in MapSource. I have been
using GeoPDFs and Google Earth to determine desired waypoints, then creating them in MapSource.

GeoPDFs are geo-referenced 24K quadrangle maps in PDF format available for free download from store.usgs.gov. (Entire USA covered). They work with a Geo toolbar available free from www.terragotech.com. You set the datum and coordinate format, and then you can see the exact USGS 24K coordinates for any spot. (Most paper 24K maps are NAD27 CONUS datum but the GeoPDF can be set to WGS 84). You can also enter coordinates and have the GeoPDF find the spot. It also allows you to measure line and path distances. Map resolution is decent but not great, about the same as normal USGS maps and, usually, you cannot mark waypoints etc. on them for upload. The most recent release of the toolbar allows for importing .gpx files but I have not had luck making this work. I'll get in touch with Terragotech support.

Many trails - but not all - are shown on GeoPDFs. Many are also shown on
Garmin's 24K maps but there are some inaccuracies there too. Paper maps from the U.S. Forest Service are 24K and show trails as accurately as possible, but they are not available in digital format. I am considering
scanning some segments and then using 3rd party software to geo-reference the scans. Also to see if the maps can be uploaded to the GPS receiver. This is a lot of work, though. Hence, for the time being, I plan to mark waypoints on the paper map, identify them carefully on a GeoPDF and create the actual points for download on MapSource. I was just wondering whether National Geographic or DeLorme showed trails more accurately than Garmin - it appears that they do have advantages over MapSource.

Mesoplodon,

The NG Topos (level 5) and the DeLorme quads (these are different from the vector maps in Topo 7) are essentially the same scanned 24k quads as the GeoPDFs from store.usgs.gov. They are going to show the same trails as your GeoPDFs. Although it’s possible that store.usgs.gov may have a newer version of some quads.

From the way you describe using the GeoPDFs, either NG Topo state series or DeLorme Topo 7 with DeLorme quads would be quite a bit easier. With either, your printed paper map is not limited to ‘standard’ quads…you can print one that overlaps ‘standard’ quads…ever had a trail that’s near the corner of 4 quads? NG topo can print 13” x 19”. DeLorme topo 7 can print 11” x17”. With either you can print custom ‘quads’ with your tracks, waypoints and notes.

With either program it’s easy to move waypoints from and to the GPS and print them on a 24k quad type map. NG Topo is limited to one map symbol, if that makes a difference.

With either program you can transfer tracks from or to the GPS. NG Topo does not keep, or at least does not provide a way to transfer the original track points back to a GPS…it’s a rebuilt version of the track. However, you could import everything into MapSource; save GPX files from MapSource and import them into NG Topo.

DeLorme Topo 7 allows you to pretty easily build overlay maps with as many lines as you want representing trails or road and transfer them to the PN-20…essentially building a custom map.

<Also> At this point I think the DeLorme PN-20 is the only one which will allow you to do this…with DeLorme Xmap.

In general, you can do more with DeLorme topo 7 with quads added, than NG Topo.