OK. I have a Garmin Etrex Vista H which I have used very little. I have searched the manuals and tried to find videos etc but have not found the answer I have been looking for. I have been on a particular trail through the Michigan UP backcountry several times and it is very poorly marked and hard to navigate. On a trip back in 2009 I marked a bunch of waypoints thinking when/if I returned I could find my way quickly if I lost the trail. Now I am returning and have these waypoints so if I start at one end and say go to nearest point will it automatically go to the next nearest point or do I have to keep advancing it to the next point?
So long as you organize the waypoints into a route and navigate the route by selecting it from the Garmin's route menu, it will take you from waypoint to waypoint automagically. Easiest to create routes in the Garmin software (or Topo) and upload them to your unit.
Also if I do the above either manually advancing points or letting the GPS advance it can I simultaneously record a track or route?
A track will record automatically so long as your track storage isn't full (even then it probably just overwrites the oldest saved track). I save my tracks daily.
I think that when I recorded this back in 2009 I generated a track because I produced a map using my NG Michigan TOPO but the GPS track is long since gone.
Tracks get overwritten, as noted above, but recorded waypoints live on until you delete them.
The plan is to use the map until I get off track and then find the trail again using the GPS. Navigating in the Michigan UP is not a straight forward exercise due to clearcuts, unmarked two tracks, swamps etc. Getting a bearing on the next know point and going to it is frequently not possible due to these problems.
GPSs are a great help wherever one's traveling XC, when trails are unmaintained and maps have errors. Also in heavy forest or when weather is so crappy one has no points of geographical reference.
Cheers,
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