BaseCamp Overrides Activity Profile Settings

Please excuse the length of this problem as I want to provide as much information as possible to see if I can take appropriate corrective action.  I run BaseCamp v. 4.7.3 with City Navigator North America NT 2022.1 although the problem first arose using 2021.3.  My Activity profile is Motorcycling with Routing set to Shorter Distance, Unpaved Roads to be avoided and all Feature Avoidances checked except Toll Roads and Roundabouts.  I have been using the program for six years and it has helped me create hundreds of routes to download to my Zumo 590LM.

There is a road intersection SSW of Harrison, AR at N35o 50.894' W93o 21.673' that connects Hwy 16 with Hwy 21.  These two roads, along with Hwy 43, are the shortest distance between Deer and Ponca, AR, respectively.  The intersection is two lane paved country roads (pavement verified using Google Maps satellite view) with no direction restrictions.  I routinely zoom in to the 80 ft. scale to ensure accuracy of my tick marks or waypoint creation.  If I attempt to create a route from Deer to Ponca, or if those two towns are on a longer route I am creating when I attempt to make a right turn from Hwy 16 onto Hwy 21 BaseCamp will not allow me to do so and automatically creates a longer route south, then west, then NE to the intersection where it adds a left turn onto Hwy 21.  It does not matter if I create the route by making successive tick marks on the roads I want to use or if I create a succession of Waypoints and then create the route by selecting all the Waypoints.  In at attempt to trick the software into avoiding the longer distances I have split routes into two parts having the first part end just before the right turn intersection off Hwy 16 and begin the second part on Hwy 21 just after making the right turn onto Hwy 21.  If I then use the function to connect the two routes BaseCamp does so and automatically creates the longer distance route(s).  This has left me with the only option being to accept the fact that to keep the shorter distance route I must make it into two separate, sequential routes. I note also that several years ago I had a similar problem with a route in SW Tennessee with BaseCamp forcing me to take the wrong fork in a road and loop through a cemetery and then routed back to the correct fork.  In this problem a helpful Garmin support representative replicated the same problem on her computer but could not find a way to correct the problem.  I appreciate any assistance that can point out what I am doing wrong.  Thank you.

  • This problem occurs sometimes and is due to an error in the map, you could report it to Garmin so it can be corrected, but that doesn't solve your immediate problem. What you can do is set that small section to direct activity, to do so open route properties in BaseCamp, select the point where you want direct activity to start, right click the point, select edit and change it to direct activity.

    What I'm not sure is how that will behave on your Zumo but you have the flexibility with Zumos to send it as a track as well.

  • This is just a suggestion for others who find map issues.

    Map issues can occur at the parent company that supplies Garmin the initial map data or at the Garmin level when add additional detail.  In most places, the base data is supplied by the company here.  The issue can be checked at the site wego.here.com.  If the issue is with their data, make a report with them.  If it works on their site, report it to Garmin and inform Garmin that the issue works with wego.here but not on their map.

    In this particular example, the intersection is a Y fork and one of the forks is set as unpaved.  Google Earth at the street view shows it as paved, so I have reported it to here and hopefully it will be fixed in the next update.

  • Thank you very much; your answer is a big assist in helping me understand  how BaseCamp works.  While I suspected the map was the problem I just wasn't certain.  I also appreciate the tip on direct activity; however, in this particular case, since I split the total loop route into two routes and I will be able to see from the end of one part to the start of the second it won't be necessary, but I may experience a similar problem on another, completely different route that may need using the direct activity function. 

  • Thank you, BT.  The thing that confused me about the fork is Google Maps satellite view showed it with both forks definitely having been paved and, apparently fairly recently from the color of the "fresh" pavement.  When I'm creating routes for a motorcycle tour I routinely have Google Maps open to the same area I am working in BaseCamp and use the satellite view to confirm I am using only paved roads.