I often get asked about topo mapping for Ireland. There's no official product, but there's free UK and Ireland contour mapping available on the Scottish Mountaineering Club website which I use whenever I'm out. I find it useful in determining if a Geocache I'm looking for is above me or below me, as the GPS only gives you a 2D view.

Where did this free data come from? To keep a long story short, a guy called David Storey took publicly available data from the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and turned it into contour maps. The whole story can be viewed on the SMC Contour page. The data also comes with Irish Trig points and summits.

I thought this may be of some interest for current GPS users and those who might receive one come Monday morning! However, there's a few prerequisites you need to be aware of before you go off and download.

• Maps will only work on Garmin units that support mapping. This is because the maps were created using the Garmin mapping format and won't work on any other GPS units.
• For easy uploading you'll need the Mapsource application that you get with Garmin Maps. A standalone copy can't be downloaded, but you can download updates for it. There is an alternative method of uploading maps using a utility called sendmap, I have never used it so I can't offer any advice for it!
• The included registry update file is for Windows XP. It may work for windows 2000, but not Windows 98\ME
• You'll need administrator rights on the PC to install the registry update file
• You install and use the maps at your own risk

It's important to note that the maps are not a substitute for the traditional map and compass method, and should be treated as an additional aid.

Downloading The Map Data

First thing that needs to be done is download the map data. Go to the SMC Contour Page, scroll down the bottom and download the files. It's advisable to download all 10 files as you may get errors in Mapsource if you leave some out. The whole download is about 100MB.

V2N4950.zip (5Mb)
V2N51.zip (13Mb)
V2N52.zip (17Mb)
V2N53.zip (11Mb)
V2N54.zip (14Mb)
V2N55.zip (11Mb)
V2N56.zip (13Mb)
V2N57.zip (11Mb)
V2N5758.zip (7Mb)
V2Essentials.zip (1Mb)

Extracting The Map Data

When all files have finished downloading, create a folder called contours v2 (note the space) in C:\Program Files\Garmin and extract the files to that location. Windows XP has WinZip built in so just "Right Click" the file and choose "Extract All" and follow the wizard and select C:\Program Files\Garmin\contours v2 as the location to extract the files to.

The files MUST reside in C:\Program Files\Garmin\contours v2 else Mapsource won't be able to find the map data.

Updating The Registry     

Browse to C:\Program Files\Garmin\contours v2 and right click "Contours V2.reg". From the context menu select "Merge" and click "Yes" to the "Are you sure you want to add the information to the registry" prompt.

Using Mapsourse

Open up Mapsource, Contours V2 should now be listed in the product dropdown menu on the toolbar. If you don't have the product dropdown menu on the toolbar just go to "View - Switch To Product" and select it. The map data is broken up into squares and the idea is you select what you want. However it can be difficult to find certain squares, so what I do is drag the map tool over Ireland and that selects everything. You can then delete what you don't want from map tab on the left.

More Info

If you are having problems installing, drop by the Geocaching Ireland Forums and we'll do our best to help you out.

Happy Mapping!