40-Foot Contours:

Unlike Garmin's USA Topo product, which has 40-Meter contour intervals, Above the Timber's Colorado Topos are at 40-foot intervals, the same as standard 7.5-minute USGS Quad maps. The 40-foot intervals are also in integer 40-foot increments, not meters converted to odd numbered feet.

High Resolution Water Data:

Besides the contour interval, the High Resolution Water Data is what makes these maps stand out. Most vector maps only have named water features, named lakes and streams. For every named water feature, their are 100-unnamed water features. To the extent possible with USGS water feature databases, ALL unnamed water features are on these maps. We're talking beaver pond resolution!!!  Additionally, most Colorado rivers are shown at their true extent, bank to bank, not just a line indicating river.

Public Lands in Unique Colors:

Virtually all Colorado public lands are included on these maps and most have a unique color for quick identification.
Here's a comparison of Above the Timbers maps verses two Garmin Topo maps:

15-minute Coverage per Map:

Each map segment covers an area of 15 x 15 minutes of arc or exactly 4 - 7.5 minute Quad Maps. These maps seamlessly join one to another, therefore you can have the entire coverage area as one seamless map inside your GPS receiver. Their are in total 320 - 15-min maps in the Colorado map set, plus an additional 32 - 30 minute maps covering the eastern-third of the state. All segments are at 24,000:1 (24K) resolution, regardless of segment size. The total map set is 309MB.

Covers ALL of Colorado:

Extensive Geologic Feature Points:

Their are over 40,000 points of interest showing summits, mines, cemeteries, arches, pillars, basins, springs, flats, ridges, cliffs, waterfalls, communication towers, passes and on and on. For example, Colorado has over 7000 named and positioned mines, they're all here! If you're in the vicinity of a mine, look for the mine symbol on your Garmin GPS for its name.

National Park and Forest Service Trails:

Most of the trails have route names and/or numbers, just touch one with the GPS cursor for an instant ID. The new red dashed line for trails shows well against all backgrounds.

Latest  Roads:

Major state and federal highways shown in distinct colors and with unique shields for quick identification. All city streets are included, while not routable, the road features greatly aid navigation.

Game Management Unit Borders:

Division of Wildlife Big Game (Deer & Elk) Game Management Unit borders have been added at the 24:000 to 1 scale of the maps. That's equivalent to having a single borderless paper map 980 x 720 inches or 82 x 60 feet. Significantly more precision than any PDF print or text description. See your exact position relative to a GMU border in the field, then use your GPS to measure how far away the border is from your position. All border lines are labeled with the adjacent area numbers, for quick reference.

The above screenshot will give you an idea of the complex nature of the GMU's and how these maps can assist you in the field.

Free Trial Download:

Here's a 4 MB file which will demonstrate all the features of the new map set. It is a cluster of 4 - 15-min map segments showing all highway types, wilderness, BLM, state land, national forest, city areas and much, much more. They're in a self-extracting executable file. The map files will appear in Mapsource as Colo Topo Demo and you can load them into any Garmin mapping GPS. If you're new to Mapsource, these screenshots will help immensely. You can also use this download to verify that Above the Timber's maps will work in your Garmin GPS receiver.

PC Download  A link to download the latest version of Mapsource is included in the PC file.

Mac Download  See the Mac installation directions here.

Cost and Upgrade:

For the cost of a half-dozen paper 7.5-minute USGS Quads, you can buy this map set with the same coverage as 1792 - 7.5-minute Quads. That's less than $0.03 per Quad. The paper equivalent is a single borderless map 980 x 720 inches or 82 x 60 feet.

The upgrade options will differ depending on whether you downloaded or bought retail, here's the Upgrade Link.

Screenshots:

A detailed wide view to show trails and major features. Wilderness areas are shown in this buff color to both distinguish them from forest, but also that the color not overwhelm the fine detail. Trails, red dashed line, are now easy to see against the contours.

Of note, the snow field "glacier" on the upper-right, the ponds along East Brush Creek, made possible by the high resolution water data  and the wetland on the left at the 11,600 contour.

Every pass is identified by the unique symbol seen here.

States Colorado | Utah | Washington