Geocaching

Many fossils of yesteryear are still in the ground – not yet discovered. How cool would it be to find one and geocache the exact location? Well the popular eTrex from Garmin is an affordable way to have the best GPS handheld to identify the specific location. If you like to hike, hunt or spend hours in wooded areas, this latest version of the eTrex from Garmin is just for you.

The eTrex Legend H and eTrex Vista H are made specifically for thick canopy areas. The vertical canyons also play havoc on most GPS receivers, but not the latest eTrex that have an MSRP of $149 for the Legend H and $199 for the Vista H. There is a fast USB interface on these units so you can load detailed topo maps from a computer onto the 24 megabytes of internal memory. If you enjoy hiking, I recommend getting a Garmin eTrex which will certainly make your excursions a lot more interactive.

BaseCamp is Garmin's new software for planning and later displaying outdoor activities. It will be great for hikers and geocachers.

The topo maps render in 3D in addition to the normal 2D view. Track Draw builds a track to simulate the route. This conveniently can project a view to show the elevation change of the planned route.

There is photo support but not much detail yet how geotagged photos are viewed and managed. For a nice integration feature, tracks can be viewed in Google Earth. Users of geocaching.com can bring data from there into BaseCamp too.

It will be released for PC and Mac at the end of the first quarter 2009. It will be part of the Garmin TOPO U.S. DVD's and as a free download for existing users of TOPO U.S. 2008. For more information, go to www.garmin.com.