New User Getting Place in Google Earth into Basecamp

[NorthGA_Hiker]

Hi everyone. First let me say I am fairly new to the whole GPS thing, but not hiking. This site has taught me so much over the past 3 weeks and I finally bought a new Garmin Oregon 550 tonight after researching it to death on this site. I am getting in the mail on Friday. I currently hike the AT a lot and use this site for many of the campsites/water sources/etc

http://www.georgia-atclub.org/trail/map.htm

There are a ton of really good waypoints on the .kml file posted there that I can view in google earth. What is the best way to import individual sites, camp sites/waters sources/parking areas/etc, into Basecamp and then ultimately into the OR550? Hope that question is not too newbish! I have read all the tutorials and have learned a lot, but I am still learning about the different file types. I would say I am pretty tech savy and have built my last 4 computers, so I hope I can learn this piece of useful technology pretty quickly. Thanks again, this is a really good site for people like myself.

Blake Gober

Dalton GA

[foresterscott01]

This small piece of freeware will do exactly what you want.  It does not pick up the descriptions or KMZ symbols for each waypoint, you'll have to type those in for each one after determining which ones you intend to upload to the Garmin (you can do this right in the software), or you can just spend a few minutes and do all of them in groups (you can see coordinate values for each waypoint to choose the ones you want individually).  The software WILL automatically group the waypoints and trails separately, (ie, vistas, campsites, shelters, bridges, etc.) and it does recognize the individual trail names, so it would be easy to convert whatever ones you needed as a batch; just be sure to export trails as tracks, not routes.  This avoids ALOT of extra waypoints.

Your resulting GPX file can just be dragged into the 550's GPX folder as-is, or you can use some other piece of software such as BaseCamp to edit it further.


FREEWARE:
http://www.hotelresortclub.com/guide/KML-KMZ-to-GPX-Converter_USD_P.html


Scott

[babj615]

North GA Hiker:

FYI, I have been playing with multiple Garmin Oregon series GPSr units for over a year now and still learn something new every day. If it wasn't for your question, and foresterscott01 answer, I wouldn't know about this great looking piece of software.

Thank you all for making GPSFileDepot such a great resource!

[foresterscott01]

Attached are the campsites extracted from the KMZ file, as an example.  This took about 20 minutes, as there is no way to batch rename the waypoints but you can cut/paste a label quite fast.  The freeware DOES pick up descriptions (number of tent sites, fire rings, etc.) that can be accessed on the Oregon, but there is a bunch of extra HTML formatting tags that are not recognized by the GPS.  For the purposes of the attached example I just deleted all of that info, but it could be left as-is. 

The waypoint symbols can be batch-changed in BaseCamp by multiple-selecting (shift and left click), then clicking 'properties', then changing the symbol to something more desirable than the default blue flag.


Scott

[jbensman]

I was not aware of this site.  Its does have lots of good stuff on it.  The GA Map for My Trails already had the trails on it and the shelter and parking data from the AT Site, but this site has much more.  I will add the parking, campsites, bathrooms, overlooks, water, etc. to the next version of My Trails (which I should upload in the next day or so).  The files have some weird formating with the html code.  I am going to just import them into the map and give them a generic name such as campsite.  It will not have anymore info than that.  So if you load My Trails on your GPS, it will have the trails and POIs as an overlay for your other maps.

ORs have a track manager feature.  I would recomend converting the trail in the GE file to gpx.  You can place it on your GPS and use track manager to navigate the trail.  It is a real nice feature.  Since you did not get the T version which has the Digitial Elevation Model, before you upload the GPX file of the AT to your GPS use this site to add elevation data: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/elevation When the GPX has elevation data, the GPS will show an elevation profile of the rest of hike.