GPS Software

Is there any gps (topo) software that shows national forest service designated trails really well. I tried garmin mapsource...no trails; topofusion, some trails but very bad clarity.

Is there any kick ass software that shows almost every trail on national forest land in north america?

National Geographic's Topo! and the Trails Illustrated (also part of NatGeo) packages are as complete as you will find. The Trails Illustrated packages also show important waypoints like campsites, ranger stations, etc, with the lat/lon right next to the symbols (no measuring off the map needed, although the program displays the lat/lon of the cursor on the screen). The underlying maps are scanned USGS quads, and there is an exchange service hosted by NatGeo that people post their GPS-derived tracks on (providing quite accurate mapping of the trails). There is a new package coming from NatGeo that allows downloading of maps on an individual basis with various overlays (not clear when this will be released for sale, since NatGeo does pretty thorough testing).

However, the other part of the answer is that even the official USFS trail maps do not show all their current designated trails, and they are continuously revising, re-routing, and building trails (I have found myself on USFS half-completed trails and on "planned trails" that appeared on their maps more than a few times, one of which ended in the middle of a marsh ... even had the signs posted at the trail junction, which led me to believe it was a real, completed trail. Got an interesting and amused reaction from one of the rangers I ran into on the "old" trail when I complained to him).

I use TOPO! as well. I've had really good results with it. I really like how you can tweak and adjust maps to suit your personal prefs.