View a topo map in another state?

[SBOhio]

Good morning. Using a new Etrex 30 .I live in Ohio and I'm going hiking in Colorado in a couple weeks. I downloaded & enabled a map called cotopo2011 from this sight. When I scroll to a point in Colorado I don't see any topo lines at all. Only very little roads. Any help? Can anyone recommend a better map I should be looking at?

[Boyd]

How did you install the map on the GPS? If you used the current version of Basecamp/MapInstall, that is likely to be the the problem. The Windows version of this software doesn't work properly with most maps on this site. See this thread: https://forums.gpsfiledepot.com/index.php?topic=4539.0

A variety of other things might also cause it, but this is the most likely cause and it's been a problem for just about everyone who uses the maps from GPSFileDepot.

[Brendon]

What's the proper way to go about it in that case, Boyd? Is there a tutorial?

[Boyd]

Just read the thread in the link I posted. It explains how you can either downgrade to an earlier version of MapInstall or use Garmin's older Mapsource software.

Garmin screwed up here, but GPSFileDepot is not without fault either. Members here stubbornly used Garmin's old registry-based map format which has a variety of issues and has caused a lot of grief for users over the years. Garmin's newer gmap format avoids all these problems, and I have urged other mapmakers to switch to it for years, with no luck. The recently-revised map-making tutorial on this site still uses the old registry format in fact.

But... "it is what it is". So, you have four options:

1. Purchase a Garmin topo map, which includes tech support and is guarnteed to work
2. Find a third party map that uses the newer gmap format
3. Downgrade to an old version of Basecamp/MapInstall
4. Use Garmin's old Mapsource software.

Most people will probably go for option 3 or 4.