Showing Tracks with Routes on the Garmin XT3

[Steve Jarrell]

In another post discussing .gpx 1.2, skipping waypoints, etc. I found that I couldn't show my route and track simultaneously for some reason. I did have my track colored a different color (Black) and it was set to its widest width, but it simply wasn't showing up with the route as I expected.

In previous Garmin units before the XT3 when you opened a track it would prompt simply "Show on Map" and when you would select this option that track would appear on the map along with your route.

However, in the XT3 the option is called "Show on Top", and when you select it you're prompted "Display this track on top of all other tracks on the map". That should have been a hint that something was very different with the XT3!

@carl-lee asked if I was using Explore (which I'm not) and suggested that if I was perhaps I should check and make sure that the visibility of my Collection was turned on.

While I'm not using Explore, I am using Collections (which I think that all XT3's have to use now), and when I checked sure enough the visibility of my Collection was turned off.

Duh! Rookie mistake! Not my first, and definitely won't be my last. Ok, I turned the visibility on, then selected my route and here's a screenshot from my XT3 of what I saw:

In this collection I have 5 routes and 5 tracks. My route showed up, and my track then showed up (shown in black) but the XT 3 shows EVERY track in the Collection when the visibility is turned on.

So THIS is the reason that the XT3 now has a "Display this track on top of all other tracks on the map" option instead of a "Show on Map" option. By design when you select a route in a Collection the XT3 automatically shows ALL of the tracks in that collection as well. That's a REALLY poor design choice IMO, but for now we have to live with it.

My workaround takes a minute or less and it shouldn't be necessary, but it works quite well. I created a new Collection called "Active", copied my route and track into it, turned the visibility of my Active collection on and all of the other collections off, then opened the route in the Active Collection. Remember I had already changed the color on my track to Black, set its width to Widest and selected its Show on Top option. Here are the results. Finally!