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Exporting Garmin Connect Activities as Tracks as opposed to Courses

Former Member over 12 years ago

I am finding myself in a relatively complicated situation in terms of how I track the different hikes and runs that I have taken. My problem has been caused by an inconsistent method that I was using to store my activities and map data.

Part of the problem is caused by the fact that I am using version 4.2 of National Geographic Topo!. This program is great, but the fact is that it doesn't play well in terms of sharing of data with other programs. So here's the problem....

I track many of my more difficult and unique hikes and runs by using my Gamin Forerunner 305 and then uploading the data into National Geographic Topo! (I use the Colorado State Series). Unfortunately, I forgot to upload the tracks of several runs and hikes that are important to me. I did upload these activities into Garmin Connect. The National Geographic Topo maps are very particular in terms of how data can be uploaded into them. The data can only be uploaded via an attached GPS device, a GPX file or a text file. Though all the reading I have done I have not been able to find a map of the text file I would need to upload into National Geographic Topo! Given that I am attempting to upload TRACKS as opposed to Waypoints or Routes - the GPX file will not work as GPX files by definition only support Waypoints and Routes. Therefore I am trying to find a way by which I can upload the TRACK data from Garmin Connect into my Garmin Forerunner 305 as a track. The only option that I can find within Garmin Connect is to upload the track data as course. I don't want to do that because National Geographic Topo! can't read courses. So my only possible solution is to find a way to upload the track data from Garmin Connect back to my Forerunner 305 as a track.

Does anyone have a possible solution to this problem? I have literally spend 2 days attempting to work through this issue using GPSBABEL and GPSUTILITY.

Any help at all for this issue would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks - Jerry

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

I originally purchased Topo! also. But now I use Garmin's "Trip and Waypoint Manager" to edit my tracks. It's vastly superior for drawing and editing tracks. Then, viewing the gpx file is better in Google Earth. Now I use Topo! only occasionally for finding the names of geographic features. My GPS unit (Garmin Foretrex 301) and many others will read in only 500 trackpoints per track. So on backpack trips or other long tracks, everything over 500 points is lost in the upload. I can edit out all trackpoints in a fairly straight line besides the endpoints from a track of biking, hiking or running, and remove 50 - 80% of the trackpoints from the file without shifting the track away from the trail enough to notice. So no loss of information. So I can get 4-5 times as much trail on a single track after cleaning it up. All long tracks that I download from GC need to be cleaned up in a similar manner before I can upload them for use in following a new trail. I clean mine up before I upload to GC. This program makes it pretty easy. I also draw tracks on Google Earth, then use GPSBabel to convert to gpx for upoad the the GPS device.

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

The data can only be uploaded via an attached GPS device, a GPX file or a text file. Though all the reading I have done I have not been able to find a map of the text file I would need to upload into National Geographic Topo! Given that I am attempting to upload TRACKS as opposed to Waypoints or Routes - the GPX file will not work as GPX files by definition only support Waypoints and Routes.

This is incorrect. A GPX file can contain tracks, waypoints and/or routes. If you view an activity on Garmin Connect, then export as a GPX file, this will be a track in GPX format.
I don't know about National Geographic Topo, but it should have some way of importing this track.

0 mathikralli over 11 years ago

> Though all the reading I have done I have not been able to find a map of the text file I would need to upload into National Geographic Topo!
> Given that I am attempting to upload TRACKS as opposed to Waypoints or Routes - the GPX file will not work as GPX files by definition
> only support Waypoints and Routes.

If you export an activity as GPX file at Garmin Connect you will get a GPX file containing your activity as TRACK. It is not true that GPX files cannot contain tracks. This file can be stored on your computer in any place.

> The data can only be uploaded via an attached GPS device, a GPX file or a text file.

Is it not possible to upload the gpx file from the hard disk drive of your computer instead of uploading it from a garmin device? Sounds strange to me.

Mathias