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Why are Earthmate maps missing trails and backcountry roads?

5409978
over 3 years ago

I just bought an InReach Mini for communication purposes. I was also hoping to use the Earthmate app for navigation. However the map I downloaded, Topo North America, for British Columbia has no trails, even very popular ones. There are also very few backcountry roads. Even major forestry roads are not shown, Am I missing something or are these maps really that inferior to the competition?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Did you zoom in enough to see them? I looked in British Columbia and there is an Open Streetmaps choice, give that a try.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to carleson

    Yes, certainly. I tried zooming right in and I tried looking at many different locations. Surprisingly, at least to me, the Open Streetmaps does show many trails in a couple of places I looked. I didn't expect that given its name. That may be the answer. Thanks Carleson.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Like the legacy iR devices (Explorer+ for example), believe Earthmate uses the old DeLorme cartography (hence the TNA name). Like most commercially available maps, coverage of trails is spotty at best. In the US, at least, you are likely to find "national trails" (for example, the Appalachian trail or the Pacific Crest trail). But coverage of local trails is usually lacking. Even when the trail is present, the locations may be outdated.

    As noted, the OSM maps do have a fair number of trails. Being crowd-sourced, they are somewhat more likely to be up to date. Might or might not be routable depending the app and device.

    In general, I prefer to use crowd-sourced tracks which are available from a number of web sites, some paid and some free. For example, AllTrails or Komoot. These days, a lot of these are slanted towards mobile apps. But most provide means of downloading a .gpx. Nothing compares to a recent boots-on-the-ground track.

  • 0 over 3 years ago
    5409978 said:
    are these maps really that inferior to the competition?

    They are. For my region, and Italy in general, those maps are a joke. Where it does works best I'd say 60% coverage, and in my local area 25% at best. I now use custom maps which use OSM as the source (I'm a regular contributor as well) and I never looked back.