GPS Nav from saved maps w/o data connection?

[Groid]

I was enjoying playing with gps/nav/maps on the way through Estes Park on the way to hiking in Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park.  I turned it back on during a hike on Deer Mtn Trail and had a great gps connection (from GPS Status app), but no phone/data service.  The Google Maps showed my location on an otherwise blank grid, but couldn't show a map because of the lack of data/phone/wireless service.  At the top of the mountain at 10000 ft, got my data connection back overlooking Estes Park and got the map back.

Is there a way to preload map data that is compatible with the gps to show your map location without data/phone service?  The gps is pretty worthless without the ability to load map data for 'offline' use.

[shawnb]

The Google Maps app does not seem to support map caching... maybe Google will add that feature at some point. I was surprised to discover this during a recent road trip through a National Park. I thought I had read online somewhere that it would cache... but apparently, it is the Navigation app that will cache your route once you input your destination, not Maps. Obviously that is not much help if you are hiking. You might want to check out AndNav.org or the BigPlanet app. They are supposed to support cached maps, but I haven't tried them myself so I'm not sure if they work on the Droid.

[Groid]

I installed Rmaps from the market, which lets you use maps other than google, but you still require a data connection.  The app claims to be able to use offline maps loaded onto the sd card, using Trekbuddy Atlas Creator to create the offline map images from various sources.  I have not yet figured out how to accomplish this, but I am intrigued by the idea.