I’ve got an old yellow eTrex which has been sadly under used, I rarely needed it to be frank.

I thought I might use it for a 5 day gravel trip we have coming up. I don’t need anything fancy, just a breadcrumb trail to follow so I can see when a junction is coming up.

Can you import GPXs to these devices? The old manual I dug out just refers to ‘Mapsource’

Ta

Yes, you can load tracks or routes. You do have to use some software, eg MapSource or GPSBabel, can’t just copy files directly. Can import GPX files into MapSource, then send to the Etrex.
And you will need a Garmin serial cable. Plus a USB/serial adapter, if you don’t have a serial port on your PC.

Also check the limits for what you can load. I think the max is 125 points in a route, or 500 points in a track.

Ok, sounds promising! So what constitutes a ‘point’? I imagine exporting a 700km Strava GPX would mean millions of points as it auto-snaps to roads and tracks?

I guess I could just plot a point at every junction, distance and bearing wouldn’t always be correct but at least I would know when a turn was coming…

You’d have to try it. Some Garmin GPS devices barf when given a GPX track to follow. Others don’t seem to care and just draw it as a breadcrumb trail. If in doubt you’d have to plot it manually as a GPX route on something like Basecamp, then transfer that across.

Having said that, I think Basecamp can convert a track to a route anyway.

Yeah fair enough, the data cables are cheap enough.

What’s the difference between a track and a route though?

Ta

A track is just a line of points on the screen, ie a breadcrumb trail. A route can have more details. eg each point can have a name or a symbol. And the GPS can show the distance to the next point. It is handy to have a countdown for how far to the next junction etc.
Though usually more effort to create a suitable route, with points in useful places. A track is quicker to draw.

For Strava, yes, downloaded tracks probably have thousands of points. You could simplify it to reduce it to less than 500 points, eg in Mapsource. Or split it into sections, each with 500 points. I think you can load up to 20 tracks on the Etrex.

I still one occasionally!

Mine seems to take routes planned in viewranger just fine.