Does anyone have any suggestions for a good hand held GPS. I will be using it mainly for hiking; but, I would also like to use it for four wheeling and maybe playing around with it in my C206. Any suggestions? I was kind of looking at the Garmin 60CSx. Any input? Thanks.
CO777Driver

 

I don't have any GPS suggestions, but if I may say one thing, it would be not to rely on them alone while hiking or in the wilderness. Recently, as some of you may have heard, there was a family from San Francisco who went up to Oregon for Thanksgiving. On their way back, they decided to take a road over to the coast instead of going down I-5 back to San Francisco. From what I've heard, the father of the family was a high tech San Francisco guy, as well as a producer/editor of CNET, and supposedly they were relying on a GPS for navigation. (this is all only what I have heard, not neccessarily the truth). After the mother and 2 young daughters were found in their car after missing for a week, the father was still missing, as he sought out to seek help for his family. A very sad story, as the father's body was found shortly after the rescue of his family.

I was driving to work and listening to a radio show on that sad day, and one caller pointed out that one should not rely on GPS alone. The caller had fished out a AAA map that clearly said that the road that the family chose to take to the coast was closed during the winter. I do not proclaim to know if the family relied on GPS alone, but my point is, if the GPS is not programmed with road closure information, etc. (particularly in the western US - places likes the Tioga Pass, etc) then it is best to use the GPS in conjuction with road maps, hiking maps, etc.

GPS is a wonderful thing, but I'd back it up with the manual stuff when setting out in the wilderness. I'm a scuba diver and have a dive computer,but it's always prudent to back up your dive computer with doing your own manual computations on the Navy dive tables, and having them on your dive slate, particularly if you're doing any sort of decompression dive. At least if your computer fails, you know your dive profile and decompression stop info.

 

I've got an Etrex Vista C that works like a champ. Even has 200 traps and cats, and it worked just fine over Iraq. If you move it a ways without turning it on, just slew the map to your general location and it finds the satellites in a couple of minutes and you are good to go. You can also get brackets to mount it in a car, bike handlebar or boat, and can upload/download points and tracks.