Ok, have a Garmin GPSMAP62st and want to have a BWCA map loaded. It comes with Topo already. My choices are Red Pine PaddleNav or Garmin's Inland Lakes Boundary Waters.

So, has anyone seen both and if so which one is better. Pros / Cons to each?

Kurt

First off, I also use the 62st but don't own either one of the two products in question nor have I seen either of them in action...

The Garmin ILBW chip must be a very recent product; thanks for bringing it to my attention. Obviously, Red Pine's is $40 cheaper. The screenshots available look similar, except RP uses the more traditional red line for marking portages where Garmin's looks sort of a dashed grey. I'm not sure if the "fly-over" view shown by Garmin in the third screenshot is GPSr-specific, or what, but that looks cool.

So far, I am very happy with using the Arch Harris data for campsite waypoints and portage tracks alongside Garmin's Upper Midwest Fishing Guide chip with my 62st. (Garmin's BaseCamp software is my interface of choice.) However, I have to either enable the UMFG map and view lake depth lines or disable the UMFG map and view topo lines (I still have some good topo relief shading available while viewing lake depth markings). I notice that both products you're asking about show both lines at once. (The 62st's built-in topo lines disappear when choosing the UMFG's map for its lake depth coverage.)

My main questions would be:
1) it there a list of lakes mapped for each product? and
2) what is the extent of each product's Quetico coverage?

For reference:
Garmin Inland Lakes Boundary Waters
Red Pine Mapping PaddleNav BWCA and Quetico

Arch Harris campsite and portage data
Garmin Upper Midwest Fishing Guide

Schweady,

Thanks for the reply, I did find the ILBW on Ebay for the same price as PaddleNav. So the price issue is a wash.

Question, how do you get the Arch Harris portage & campsite data base into BaseCamp as it is a text file? I've been having issues trying to use Base Camp, any links would be appreciated.

Kurt

Bones:

On the Arch Harris page, right-click and download the files 'bwca-portage-tracks.gpx' and 'bwca-camp+port-wpt.gpx' Then, in BaseCamp, import the files. (I personally do not like the fact that the bwca-camp+port-wpt.gpx file includes waypoints for each end of every portage... when you have the portage tracks from the bwca-portage-tracks.gpx file, it seems cluttered and redundant. You can highlight these (the ones with the little airplane icons) in the 'Recently Imported from bwca-camp+port-wpt.gpx' listing and delete.

Now, where did you find ILBW at a discounted price?

Schweady,

Thanks, I'll give it a whirl.

Found it on ebay: http://tinyurl.com/7surdef

Kurt

Oh, guess I missed that above. Hope it works out for you.

Overall, keep in mind that some (not all) Garmin maps are tied to a specific device, while PaddleNav can go on a card and be used in any device.

quote mntentman: "...keep in mind that some (not all) Garmin maps are tied to a specific device..."

Right. That was the original concern with Garmin's Upper Midwest Fishing Guide. It turns out those fears were unfounded. What I've read so far leads me to assume that the Inland Lakes Boundary Waters map is being treated the same.

Any progress, FB?

Schweady,

Nope, have not had time. I think I'm going to just import the Arch Harris Campsite & portage date base. I just need to get some time to do it. Our trip is not until July 1st so I have a 1 1/2 months to get it done.

Hey, I'm looking for an update here from someone who got the Garmin Inland Lakes Boundary Waters maps. It's really hard to tell from Garmin's product page what the exact coverage is. I'm assuming it includes the ENTIRE BWCA and the ENTIRE Quetico Prov Park, but I wanted to make sure before I got it. Can anyone tell me?

Thanks in advance!

Wondering the same thing. Wish the web site would show a list of lakes covered rather than just a map with a box. I have the Upper Midwest Fishing Guide chip with its 9,500 lakes so ILBW is probably not an improvement but you'd think that the name would indicate an effort to include every lake. The rep at Scheels in Fargo said it included camp sites and portages (no biggie as I already have the Arch Harris data installed) but had no clue about locating lake lists for either product.

So I downloaded the Garmin Inland Lakes Boundary Waters. Here's my reaction after looking at it for a bit in Base Camp.

First, importantly, it does include all of Quetico (and all the BWCA), plus much of the surrounding areas, but not some areas people might like, such as the Pigeon River (down to Lake Superior), the far west end of Vermilion, anything west of Crane Lake, or Birch Lake around Babbitt.

It includes campsites and portages. But in Quetico it is overinclusive - it seems to have gotten the campsite info from the PCD and includes some sites twice when their location has been corrected in that db (for instance, there are three sites on Hurn Lake, and the locations of two of them have been corrected on the PCD - this map shows 5 sites, including both the incorrect and correct locations for those two sites).

It also seems to include every portage ever mapped in Quetico, which means that it has (or seems to have on first inspection) all the real ones (which Fisher and McKenzie don't), but it also has all the phantom ones that are on those maps too.

In the BWCA, I am assuming the campsite info is accurate. So far I found one obscure portage that is missing (it's not on Fisher or McKenzie either, but it is on Voyageur). The most interesting thing is it shows every old road as if it still exists - lots of old logging roads shown west of Crab Lake, for instance. This could be fun information to have, but also could be misleading. You would have to approach these maps with a lot of pre-understanding about the limits of their data.

It includes good campsite and portage information for the areas of the SNF that are outside the BWCA but within the coverage area. But it also has errors in naming roads that are found on many maps of the area, and some errors in business locations and things like that.

In general I do like the quality of the maps. My only significant complaint on that front so far is that rivers through marshes and bogs (like Moose River South down to Big Moose Lake) are shown as very thin blue lines through a sea of blue-on-green marsh symbols - this may be accurate, but it makes it hard to discern where the rivers that are the real travel routes are.

For me, the inclusion of the campsite info is a bit of a negative, because as far as I can tell the campsites and portages on the maps are not editable waypoints or routes. If I want to edit, I have to add the waypoint files separately. I don't mind doing that, but then it seems like the maps could be very cluttered. If the campsite info was not already there, I could load the waypoint files and it would not be so cluttered.