What do you think of this gps? Are the maps for bwca available for this unit? I want campsites and portages. I will use maps on our trip, but,,,my wife gets lost in our driveway. I bought her a gps for her car, and she can go anywhere now. She likes using it. I know this 680T is a little expensive, but it also will use a road map, so I can replace her gps with this in her car too, which will get her to know how to use it before the trip.

It will do no good trying to teach her maps. I have tried for years. The blank stare of a college educated ICU nurse, capable of saving lives, at any map, is something to see. Put your finger on 2 places,,with a black line running between them,,marked interstate75,,,and ask her how to get from one place to the other,,,go ahead,,try it when you meet her.

I have a lower back problem that shows up once or twice a year. I will sneeze wrong or something,,,and then cannot get up from the ground unassisted for 6-7 days.

If this happens and we just have maps,,the wife may need to go get help,,she will canoe around in circles for a week,,end up finding me again,,,go in some more circles,,,i will get eaten by a bear since I can’t get up and run,,she will get discovered after 2 weeks and rescued. Two weeks with no food will cause my wife to loose just enough weight to make her look like she did 20 years ago. Being that my wife is a beautiful woman, the guy that rescues her will immediately fall in love with her, take her from the bwca and after a short grieving period,,,well you know,,somebody else owns my new canoe and carbon fiber paddle!

Now the pain of thinking about all this is slightly reduced, knowing a bwca guy who appreciates the outdoors and canoeing will get the stuff, and not some slick talking guy at a bar who would sell my spitfire in a yardsale for 50 bucks,,,but still, you can see why this gps purchase is kind of important to me.

Excellent explanation and reasoning, Jon!

It may be a bit of overkill but will work fine. Lots on internal memory and a chip slot alow it to use some maps (Garmin compatable) interchangeably with the base loaded maps. It is compatible with the BaseCamp program allowing the building of customized area specific maps, and will do what is called layered mapping, displaying multiple maps as layers in the display.

I have linked several waypoint/trail/route files here for anyone to use.
GPS files on my Onedrive, any problems just shout out.
I'm also a big fan of the available Birdseye subscriptions. Using these maps (once a mapped area is downloaded it's yours independent of the subscription), printed on my home computer for navigation. Other chip based commercial maps are available, I'm most familiar with Red Pine Mapping.

butthead

great! This one, being a t model, will have topo loaded on it. Will the basecamp you speak of be on there too, or is that something else I need to get? I read it comes with a year free subscription to birdseye.

The wife also is waiting on me to retire this year, and wants to go to Ireland. I found a chip map that goes in it, so it will work for that too. Does birdseye cover just USA, or will I find Ireland in that also?

Basecamp is just the free desktop software Garmin gives you for managing maps on the device, loading waypoints, and doing other things related to mapping.
I spend way too much time in Basecamp planning future BWCA trips I may or may not ever take.

After temporarily losing my eTrex hcx after BWCA 2016 I scrambled out & bought a 30x. Naturally, about 14 months after the eTrex disappeared it reappeared behind a couch. My 30x came with the free year of satellite birdseye, but I was disappointed the couple times I used it and never downloaded any additional imagery. Butthead is specifically referring to the birdseye topographic maps you can get for ~$20/year. Pay once and download all of them, once you have them they're yours.

Can't answer your Ireland questions, sorry.

One other thing, I wouldn't expect a handheld GPS to operate like a car GPS. You won't get turn by turn directions in the wilderness with it. Best you can do is to set up a route with waypoints, then tell it to follow that route. A good thing you can do to get practice with your new handheld would be to temporarily get enthusiastic about geocaching.

mirth: "Basecamp is just the free desktop software Garmin gives you for managing maps on the device, loading waypoints, and doing other things related to mapping.

It must come with the gps in the box then. They did not mention it in the ad.

mirth:
One other thing, I wouldn't expect a handheld GPS to operate like a car GPS. You won't get turn by turn directions in the wilderness with it.

we understand that. She will still get used to the menu's and stuff using it in her car. We will see how it works in our woods. She plans on hiking with her pack/canoe thru our woods for training for portages. Maybe i will hide presents in the woods for her to find with it.

Garmin Basecamp free download
You do not need the GPS to download and run this on a home computer.

butthead

PS Some other links to check out,
GPSfiledepot
Geocaching.com
Topo UK Ireland bh

butthead: " Garmin Basecamp free download
You do not need the GPS to download and run this on a home computer.


butthead

PS Some other links to check out,
GPSfiledepot
Geocaching.com
Topo UK Ireland bh"

i went to get it. It says it cannot be installed on windows 7. Two guesses what my computer is running.

edit: i found another file basecamp for windows 7

Just me, but I'd be happy enough with the 610t, if found for a better price, just because I don't need a camera with a gps unit. Maybe that's what butthead was saying about 'overkill.'

I have the 64st, and it's all that I could ask, the basic difference between it and the Montana unit you're looking at is buttons vs touchscreen. Whichever floats your boat, but I like the buttons on mine for use in the wilderness.

Although you can use it as-is, I might recommend looking at the Garmin LakeVu HD micro chip (or the Upper Midwest Fishing Guide chip, if you can find it) for displaying lake depths.

I did not want the camera at first and also thought about the 610t, but wife wants to take a camera with her, and since she does not own a camera except her phone, which we are not taking with us, the 680 fixed that problem too.

I found them brand new for $465, no tax, free shipping. I ordered it today.

I got the 680t and played around yesterday. It is very rugged built. It is heavy. Looks waterproof ok if you pay atten to the rubber covers on the outside connections. I think they could get opened by rubbing sideways on a pack or something. I like the 2 battery options a lot.

I found it easy to navigate, although it has MANY different menue's to go thru to find what you want. After a couple hours though, i was zipping right along. I am sure there is more to learn, but just going thru and changing all the settings teaches you a lot about it.

I am not impressed with the camera. To take a pic, you hold down the camera shutter until it can focus, then let go. All that holding and moving your finger makes it very hard to take a clear pic. The place you hold your finger on is at the bottom, and the heavy gps does not balance well while you take pics because of how you hold it. I will experiment with it more, but it is not naturally easy to get good pics. It is a nice feature that the camera marks each photo automatically for you. Call up a pic and it will make a route to take you back to wherever you took that pic, so the camera is functional for other things too. I like that since the pic reminds you of why you were there instead of a waypoint title.

I did not think geocaching would be fun, but it does look interesting as a teaching tool for the function and use of this gps. Punch a button and all kinds of geocache info is at your fingertips. It was instantly understandable.

There is for sure a lot more functions on this then will be needed canoeing the bwca. Read the literature on it to be sure you need it, otherwise a cheaper model could fit your needs. One problem with me is I do not know all of what I need yet, but this unit covers everything! I wanted the (disappointing) camera, large memory, large screen, touch screen, compass, and other stuff advertised on it, so I spent the money. I do not regret it so far, because i have a tendency to buy big the first time instead of upgrading 3 or 4 times to finally end up with good equipment. I do think Butthead hit it when he mentioned "overkill" on this unit, but I will grow into it as I use it more. The wife says i go too far with my hobbies,,,

I'll be back after I learn to load maps and stuff and let you know how I did as a beginner with it. I have to start a thread to get someone to tell me how!