I’ve got a Garmin Oregon 700 and I’m starting to try a bit more route planning. I’ve got no problem using Komoot/Garmin Connect to plan a track and export to GPX. GPX files present an overlaid ‘breadcrumb’ track onto the map which you need to follow – there’s no turn-by-turn navigation or recalculation if you go astray. As a pootler who likes to look at the wildlife and scenery it’s quite easy to miss a turn.
Garmin Routes are a small collection of Waypoints and/or POIs which roughly plot out the shape of a route and I believe that the Oregon calculates directions between these points to get you around; you get turn-by-turn navigation, route recalculation and useful audible alerts when approaching & reaching turns (nice if you’re not paying attention).
Neither Komoot or, annoyingly, Garmin’s own Connect will produce Routes; Komoot just does gpx. I get the feeling that Routes are now old hat as Connect focuses on Courses (which give turn-by-turn navigation). Unfortunately the Oregon doesn’t work with Courses (not, I suspect, that there’s anything intrinsically incompatible, but that I suspect that Garmin can’t be assed to add the ability to the Oregon’s firmware).
This leaves me with the option of converting a GPX file to a Route in Basecamp, which is where the nightmare begins.
I can load a GPX track into Basecamp and generate a Route from it but it turns every single gpx point (breadcrumb) into a Waypoint and the Oregon is limited to 50 Waypoints/POI per route; even a short loop usually exceeds this. There is an Optimize Route option but this is usually ineffectual. I’ve also found a option to remove shaping points from route, but as the program simply converts all GPX point to shaping points it usually destroys the route. Even if I do manage to convert a GPX file to a Route in Basecamp I don’t get turn-by-turn navigations (each Waypoint in the Route properties tab has “Won’t alert” against it).
In fact the only way I’ve found to successfully create a Route is to do it by hand in Basecamps (not a fun experience) or using the even more fiddly Route Planner built into the Oregon itself.
I may be doing something wrong but assuming that the Oregon will never be updated to work with Courses, are there any online mapping tools that will produce Garmin Routes or successfully convert a GPX file to a Route.
