Topo U.S. 24K Topo U.S. 24K DVD gives access to a wider coverage area than Garmin’s Topo U.S. 24k data cards. The new Topo U.S. 24K West DVD provides up-to-date detailed 24k topographic coverage for Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada. Built-in DEM (digital elevation model) data supports 3-D terrain shading and route elevation profiles to help estimate terrain difficulty. With routable roads and trails in metropolitan and rural areas, getting to your destination is made easy by creating point to point routes on compatible units. In addition, you can search for points of interest by name or proximity to enhanced shoreline detail to help prepare you for your next outdoor adventure. Feature Garmin’s new computer application, BaseCamp. BaseCamp allows you to plan and manage trips, routes and waypoints on both your computer and GPS. It provides the user with 2-D and 3-D map views, and animated playback of routes and tracks. BaseCamp also supports photo geotagging and allows for photo and map data transfers both to and from your GPS device. Routable road content and searchable business points of interest provided by NAVTEQ searchable points of interest including food and drink, lodging, park, trails, camping, fuel and more Dense contour interval generated from elevation data approximating the 24k USGS quad maps. Enhanced shoreline equivalent to 24k. Built in DEM and 3-D terrain shading on your computer and compatible units. Elevation profile of routes on your computer and compatible units, helps you estimate terrain difficulty. Detailed lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands. Geographic place names such as summits, trailheads, towns and natural features. National, state, and local parks, forests, recreational and wildlife area boundaries. Inland lakes detail: bathymetry, fish attractors, navigation channels. Searchable Section, Township and Range where coverage
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Great Maps – no cartographic display though
I first saw this map source described in the Amazon description of the Nuvi 265WT, which I purchased. The sample map display shown is what you see when using the PC software – not what you see on the GPS unit. The CD contains cartographic data, which the PC software is able to display. That information doesn’t seem to be transfered to the SD card (or the GPS isn’t capable of displaying it). That was dissapointing, but I’m otherwise satisfied with the product.
I had a Magellan Meridian before, which would only display elevation lines. The Garmin with TOPO produces a similar appearing display, with perhaps more detail as to water features (streams, lakes, etc.).
When using the TOPO maps, I’ve found that the 2-D formats provide a more readable display. Since the maps are essentially flat, the elevation lines in the 3-D view are more distracting than meaningful.
5 Stars simple to install for this Mac user
The DVD installed the map software on the computer with the usual intuitive mac interface. The first time i ran map install it prompted me to download an updated version, which i did. This took 20 minutes. I had the 2GB micro sd card in the GPS. When selecting maps to upload the interface told me how many GB they would take up and how much room I would have remaining. I selected Washington and Oregon and clicked install. The upload to the GPS took about an hour . The maps look great and the device just works with them, without any frustration or complication. I tried using the map manager software and also found it intuitive to make and upload waypoints. Have no fear Mac users!
5 Stars Must Have for Hikers, Backpackers
Not sure what I can say about TOPO maps, specifically, other than you’re going to need them if you spend any time in the back country — whether you are hiking or backpacking or just bumming around in the woods. The maps are clear and easy to read on my Garmin HCx Legend. They’re not cheap, but what can you do? Sure you can look around online for free, compatible, download-able maps from online sources but I found I couldn’t always get the coverage I needed from free maps. Simply put, if you’re going to be using your GPSr for anything outdoorsy, on the ground, in the western states of Washington Oregon, California or Nevada just suck it up and get these 24K TOPO maps. Not the 50k:1 or 100k:1 … Get the standard of the realm 24k:1 TOPO maps. Then learn to actually READ a TOPO map if you don’t know how.
Garmin provides two, free to download, guides for using a GPSr. One specifically covers using your GPSr in conjunction with a paper TOPO map. These are both good resources and are worth reading; especially if you’re unfamiliar with the wealth of information a good TOPO map provides. Get them here:
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3 Stars Best 24k product out there — but still not very good
Just to make it clear, I consider this the best 24k topo mapping product. I’ve used TopoFusion and National Geographics TOPO! so far, and Garmin SW is much better:
- Nice and clear UI
- Very nice looking maps
- Easy to zoom and scroll maps
- The killer feature: 24k resolution maps on my handheld GPS!
But all this still does not make it very good piece of software. My main complaints:
1) Installation program does not give you option to install anywhere but C: drive. I happen to have a 32GB SSD as the system drive and I can not waste 4GB for the map data. Additionally over 6GB of space is needed during installation — I don’t know how much over, because I ran out of disk space. I solved the problem by creating a Directory Junction (symlink) from D: drive to C:\ProgramData\Garmin. See mklink command in Vista.
2) Browsing maps is slow. Zooming, scrolling … pretty much everything in the user interface moves at half speed. It’s usable, but slightly annoying.
3) 3D view is so slow that it’s almost a joke. Move a map around a bit and wait for 10 seconds for it to redrawn. Meanwhile your tracks and waypoints jump around as the program updates the 3D model to the new zoom factor.
4) Usability of the 3D view is not very good. Trying to rotate the map around and zoom down to get a good idea of how the track moves up and down is too hard. Compare to Google Earth where the movement is both fast and intuitive.
But again, what can you do? I’m not returning the product as it is the best. Sometimes the best just isn’t good enough 
5 Stars This thing is a kick!
I used this with my Garmin Vista HCx and it works well. If you are deciding between the DVD or the micro SD card that loads into the device, get the DVD. It was well worth it! The DVD lets you look at all of the maps on your computer (Mac for me). You can make routes, tracks, and waypoints and load them into the GPS. Awesome! You do need to buy a blank micro SD card for the GPS though. I got the 2 Gig card for about $7 and loaded topo maps for all of WA, OR, and some of northern CA and I left about 60 Megs open! (This took a few hours!) It is also easier to type in route names on the computer than on my GPS. Another cool feature is the fact that you can right-click your mouse on the map and it will grab the 3-D map and move it around like you are looking at it in your hand. From what I can tell, it does just fine including trails. I did notice one trail so far where half of it was missing. Not sure how many errors there are, but I think there are more things correct than there are incorrect. I am also able to use my GPS to navigate on roads and highways and it will give me turn by turn directions. I mostly use my GPS for hiking and these maps are stellar and are at USGS quality. You can print maps, but I don’t think their quality is spectacular. Overall, great product! The only problem I have with Garmin products, in general, is that they have TERRIBLE directions. For example: they don’t tell you why you would want to make a route instead of tracks, they just tell you how to make each one. Just use it to figure it out, I guess.
