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Wow, that did the trick, thanks!  For some reason, that view box wasn't showing up in my browser until I opened and closed it multiple times since now I knew it had to be there.  Now I can see it and most importantly, when I zoom in on the areas I need trails for, the map isn't anywhere near as good as the osm trails map.  So you guys just saved me some serious dollars, I would have been very disappointed; many thanks for all your help! 

I looked at the tutorial, my impression is that if I bought the Garmin West 24k on SD card, I would NOT be able to use it to combine with a transparent trail map, I could only do that if I bought it on the DVD, is that correct?
Also, I looked on the Garmin site, and don't see any way to preview specific areas of the maps; when I select the view tab it only gives a couple of random screen shots, I can't take a look at a local area to see if it's covered. Is this what you meant?

Thanks for the replies.  I looked on the Garmin website and I can't see any way to preview maps so I don't know if their 24k is any good or not. Where on the website is the preview?  I looked on this site and there is a california topo map and a good trail map (OSM); I assume if I make the trail map transparent and load them both into the GPSr the trails will be overlaid on the topo map? Sorry to be such a noob, this is a new (and confusing) world to me 

Hi all;
I'm new to this forum and the gps world and will be doing some hiking in the San Francisco Bay area.  I just bought a refurbished Garmin Colorado 300 and want to make custom trail maps for it using county park maps. I have gone through lots of forum posts and the more I read, the more confused I get as to what I need to buy or get before I make them. The unit comes with no topo maps; should I get the Garmin 24k maps and then do an overlay? If so, do I need to buy the maps on CD, SD card or download? Are there better trail maps out there than the Garmin 24k that I should get instead? I am pretty strapped for cash so I don't want to buy the wrong thing; hopefully the Colorado 300 wasn't the wrong thing to buy either
Thanks in advance for your help!
John