Which garmin GPS is best for climbing Munros

[Marty_JG]

A phone shouldn't die-in-a-day of being used mainly for offline tracking with occasional screen-on glances to check position. Is your phone ancient? The battery fritzed? Lots of apps draining away the power in the background? If so then perhaps a tiny power bank would be of assurance.

Otherwise modern £100-ish rugged smartphone have batteries in the 5000 to 8000 mAh range (a couple of years ago the top-end smartphones were only about 3000 mAh).

[davemorrissey]

For Android users, GPX Viewer Pro provides offline maps with contours, rivers and lochs, and most significant paths, and as the name suggests it displays GPX files. The whole planet is covered but you can download only the countries you need. For a £4.49 one time fee it's a bargain. Usual disclaimers about carrying a paper map apply, but for fairly casual walking it's perfect. Battery usage is low too, I've done 8 hour walks with 80% battery remaining.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vecturagames.android.app.gpxviewer.pro

With a pouch you can (with some difficulty) use a phone in the rain with gloves on.

[McKendrigo]

I got a Garmin Etrex 20x as a Christmas present a few years ago.

I'd have been happy enough with a more basic model, but I'm happy with it. You can download GPX waypoints from Walkhighlands straight onto the unit, which I use for sanity-checking my manual map-based navigation. Takes 2 AA batteries which seem to last a long time, though I don't have it turned on most of the time during a walk.

The interface a little overcomplicated/clunky though. I think Garmin market it to fishermen, hunters and geocachers as well as hikers, so it's trying to be all things to all men. Getting a bearing/distance to a waypoint, for example, seems much more of a faff than it should be.

[scoob999]

Thanks everyone for your advice , will probably get the etrex 30 or 66 but will try the app on my phone first. I've been looking at the online tuition to learn how to use a map and compass so will try out my learnings on a small walk before trying anything tricky.

There are apps I use for when I want a bigger picture of a map, but tbh in winter I wouldn't trust a phone, not reliable enough and I have a good phone

[davekeiller]

I think you need to think through what exactly you are planning on using a GPS for.
Personally, I was taught to navigate using a paper map and a magnetic compass, so the only thing I need a GPS for is to give me an accurate grid reference in an emergency or when disorientated on a summit plateau. An app on a smartphone will do that, but I carry an etrex 10 that I found on a hill and then got repaired for about £20 as a backup.
If, on the other hand, you want a colour screen to show you a map, and you want to download waypoints in advance to make navigation easier, or you want to use it as a tracking device to know where you've been, or you want something with a barometer, thermometer and wind speed measurement, then you're looking for something altogether more high end.

[Boris_the_Bold]

Yep, I agree 100% with davekeiller - a paper map (open and in a decent map case), a proper compass and an etrex10 to confirm that you have successfully reached the small clag-obscured Top at the far end of the Ben Avon plateau that you have been walking all day to get to and to give small (and medium-sized) children the incentive of a distance count-down, to reduce the fear that the walk you have dragged them on is never going to end.

Drop you mobile phone in a bucket of water, then put it in the freezer for 4 hours, then try to operate it with wet gloves on and if still works then you have a better phone that mine! And even so, you should still go with Plan A above!

And OS Maps on an ordinary smart-phone is great for long distance paths and cycling trips etc, so again I reckon you don't need a fancy stand-alone GPS with full colour mapping etc

But keep your phone well away from your compass or you might end up with a bigger problem than a bit of magnetic variation to deal with!