Garmin TOPO Going 24k
Something that has always held back a select group of GPS enthusiasts from Garmin handheld devices is the lack of topo maps at a 1:24,000 (24k) resolution. Until now maps had only been available in 1:100,000 scale. But the times they are a changing and higher resolution maps are becoming available.
Prior to now you could only get 24k coverage for Garmin devices around National Parks. Now, available on microSD card you can get Washington and Oregon. Next month (July 2008) California and Nevada should become available as well, with the rest of the contiguous United States “Coming Soon”.
Here is what you will get:
- Topo 24K coverage
- Points of interest with thematicicons: parks, campgrounds, boat ramps, airports and others
- 3-D terrain shading on compatibleunits
- Elevation profile of routeson compatible units, so you can estimate terrain difficulty
- Routable roads and trails
- Searchable points of interest including visitor’s centers, camping and picnic areas, wildernesscampsites, and more
- Detailed hydrographic features,including wetlands
- National, state and localparks, forests and recreational areas including conservation areas
- BLM Township and Range Section overlay; USGS quad name overlay
The cost for Washington and Oregon is $99.99 and California/Nevada will be priced the same. So don’t expect to grab all of the USA without spending a grand or so. 
But it is nice to see higher resolution topo maps becoming available.
Hi,
I have a Nuvi-780. I’m wondering about TOPO maps use Garmin recommended that I buy, another GPS - I cant use a tall skinny GPS in my Toyota 4×4 Truck (doesn’t fit)…
Any one load a TOPO Map on a 780?
You can load them on the 780– They will just display on the map, no other typical off-road style navigation functions are offered.
Is there road on the topo map?
There is a road, but as far as I know it is like the 100k topo in that it is drawn on the map but it is not able to be navigated on as part of a route. (At least not without doing it manually.)
What topo maps are compatible with Garmin 755T?
In the bullet list in the article above, the third bullet says “3-D terrain shading on compatible units.” Which Garmin GPS units are “terrain shading” compatible? All of the nuvi’s? Only some of the nuvi’s?? If so, which ones? How about the 60CSx? (I couldn’t find an answer to this question on the Garmin website.) I already know that the Oregon and Colorado series are terrain shading compatible. Thanks.