Magellan eXplorist 610 GPS

I'm back on Vancouver Island hunting. It was only 2 years ago that I rolled my quad and was trapped under it for a while. I thought at the time, this isn't good. I was surrounded by elk quarters, had a little dog barking at an unknown beast in the woods, probably a cougar and  my rifle was broken.  When I got back through the miracle of prayer and the arrival of a human angel, I decided that I needed to carry a satellite phone with me when I was hunting in the wilderness.
Last week Tom and I were in the truck when a tree blocked our path and it was doubtful whether we'd be able to get up the slippery slope we'd just slid down.  I had the Iridium Satellite Phone but I didn't know where we were. It was looking like we'd need a tow truck.  I have a couple of gps on my sailboat.  Both are really slow.  Neither takes the backroads maps.
The Magellan eXplorist 610 GPS is awesome. I was in Nanaimo at the Canadian Tire and looked at all the garmin and magellan backwoods hand held gps.  This was the one that was easiest to use.  We found Nanaimo, right off.  One of the other gps seemed stuck in Kansas.  This one comes loaded with a world map and a special map of Canada with the logging trails of British Columbia in detail. I love it.  
I am over here because it's the last place to hunt without having to drive around in slippery snow.  Since my quad was stolen,  I've been driving about in my truck again experiencing the sheer terror of sliding in mud and snow. I have the chains but always remember skiing down a mountain with chains on and still no traction.  I have the Honda 250 in the back and that was awesome early in the season before the rains and snow. Now it's my escape pod. I figure if I get stuck or the truck breaks down I can unload the motorcycle and Gilbert and I can get away from a zombie attack.
In the meantime I'm driving around on Vancouver Island logging trails getting thoroughly lost only to look at the gps and see which river and lake I'm by and which logging main is nearby.  I love it.
I sailed with a sextant and now I love my gps.  I love the gps in my Miata sportscar too but this one is the best.  It's the most intuitive of them all with great visuals.  I love the screen sensitivity. I'm spoiled by Apple's technology. I don't like the old fashioned ways inputting of data. We're spoiled so soon.  This Magellan rocks.  Next I'll be wanting a cyborg brain meld telepathic heads up link and wonder how I ever got by with just touch screen.
I just tap this Magellan exploits 610 and screens appear. I push my finger across the screen and the map moves. What could be easier.  I like that it takes two double AA batteries too. I like rechargeable but when it comes to wilderness I like to have the option of batteries. I have both rechargeable VHS radios on my off shore sailboat and a couple with batteries just in case.  If I want to use 'rechargeable batteries" I can. What I liked to is the Magellan came with batteries and the USB cable to attach to the computer. I didn't need to attach it to the computer to use it right off either. It was fully functional out of the box in the store while other gps required computer interface before they could be used or one had to buy the wilderness map extra.  Not this one.  I love technology that's was made by someone who considered I just might be an idiot.  The young kid in the Canadian Tire store was fantastic, way faster than me with his thumbs but I didn't have to be a 20 year old, or worse, a teen ager, to have this Magellan working right out of the box.  I love that.
I've hooked up to magellangps.com too where there's lots of support. When I'm travelling around the world I can get other maps specific to the region I'm visiting from Navionics while the world map already loaded is good enough.
And I love the camera.  I carry my iPhone with me and usually take pictures with that. Increasingly I'm getting iPhone coverage too for moments on the tops of mountains.  Now I can take pictures with the gps.  They're almost as good as the iPhone .  The problem with the iphone maps was that I had to have coverage. This meant horrendous roaming charges too.  With the GPS there's no ongoing user cost like that an coverage is everywhere and always as long as you can access the satellites.
Here's the picture I took with the Magellan gps of Gilbert scanning the woods for game.