gps routes

aj said:

i have bought a garmin gekko 201 but dont have mapping software,is
there a website out there where i can download routes to my gps,im
thinking particularly scottish routes,i'll pay of course!

I use GPS Utility, and would highly recommend it. There's a free
version you can use with limited capability, and upgrading to the full
version isn't expensive either. You can use it to enter waypoints and
plan routes, and upload them to your GPSr.
See http://www.gpsu.co.uk/

Cheers, Simon
website: http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk

In message <[email hidden]>, aj
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

i have bought a garmin gekko 201 but dont have mapping software,is
there a website out there where i can download routes to my gps,im
thinking particularly scottish routes,i'll pay of course!

http://www.haroldstreet.org.uk/waypoints.php
http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/gpsfiles.php
http://www.lakedistrictwalks.com/gps/routesa.html

See also:

http://www.gpsu.co.uk/

Regards,
--
Neil Pugh

aj said:

i have bought a garmin gekko 201 but dont have mapping software,is
there a website out there where i can download routes to my gps,im
thinking particularly scottish routes,i'll pay of course!

The SMC will sell you a full set of routes up the Munros and Corbetts for
about £10. They come in just about every format going, so you should be
able to load them into the Gekko (at least a few at a time, you won't be
able to load them all at once).

Essentially its all the main waypoints necessary to follow the "red lines"
in their two books describing Munros and Corbetts.

Worth the tenner in my opinion.

- Nigel

--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

Or more specifically for Scottish Routes try...
http://www.haroldstreet.org.uk/search.php?sel=scots

and Munro / Corbett Waypoints
http://www.haroldstreet.org.uk/waypoints.php?area=scottish

All for free, but donations are welcome ;-)

cheers

-----------------------------------------------
Phil & Heather
GPS Waypoints for UK Mountains & Hills
<http://www.haroldstreet.org.uk/>

aj said:

i have bought a garmin gekko 201 but dont have mapping software,is
there a website out there where i can download routes to my gps,im
thinking particularly scottish routes,i'll pay of course!

Free GPS-routes, for if you want to walk in Eastern Belgium, you can
get on my website http://www.ardennenwandelen.nl (see under the link
'wandelen'😉

Jacqueline

aj said:

i have bought a garmin gekko 201 but dont have mapping software,is
there a website out there where i can download routes to my gps,im
thinking particularly scottish routes,i'll pay of course!

If you invent your own routes from a paper map and enter them manually
it does take a lot longer, but it has the advantage that you learn a
lot from looking at the map, so that when you're out in the wild the
waypoints in your Geko will mean a lot more to you and navigation will
be easier and less liable to error. That in turn means that when out
in the wild you'll need to consult your paper map a lot less, perhaps
not at all. So you haven't really lost so much time by doing it
manually, because you gain some of it back while out on the
route. Especially if it means you can avoid having to consult a paper
map in driving rain :-)

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Chris Malcolm said:

If you invent your own routes from a paper map and enter them manually
it does take a lot longer, but it has the advantage that you learn a
lot from looking at the map,

I learn a lot from looking at a computer map. No difference really, they're
both maps.

Quoted message said:

so that when you're out in the wild the
waypoints in your Geko will mean a lot more to you and navigation will
be easier and less liable to error.

Not sure what you mean there. Why would the waypoints mean more to me?
They're just collections of numbers. Whether I input them manually or not, I
forget them either way. I just can't seem to remember grid refs. I know that
Snowdonia starts with SH, the western Beacons start with SN, the eastern
Beacons SO, and Swansea and Gower start with SS. But that's it.

I've marked Fan Brycheiniog countless times but I still couldn't tell you
what it is. I think the easting ends with 36 and the northing ends with 898,
but that's only because I was looking closely at those numbers a few days
ago. I haven't got a clue what they start with.

I don't seem to have a problem remembering phone numbers and numbers for
converting miles to km and feet to metres, but grid refs just don't stick.

Quoted message said:

That in turn means that when out
in the wild you'll need to consult your paper map a lot less, perhaps
not at all.

I hardly ever do that anyway, and that's after looking at the computer map,
not a paper one.

Quoted message said:

So you haven't really lost so much time by doing it
manually, because you gain some of it back while out on the
route.

The big problem with doing it manually is that it's very easy to make a
mistake. You only have to get one number wrong and you could be 1km or 10km
out, or even 100km out if you get the prefix wrong, which is easy to do if
you're on a boundary, like for example setting a waypoint for Pen y Fan
while you're sitting in the car at Storey Arms.

The advantage with doing it on a computer is that once your map is properly
calibrated (or you use ready made mapping software like Anquet), you just
know it's going to be right, so you don't even have to look at the numbers.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/