ski3pin said:
The biggest issue with Backcountry Navigator is their use of a propitiatory .bcn file system. .
For future reference: It's possible to get the waypoints out of Backcountry Nav. The .bcn files are "sqlite" files, an open-source file format. Use the free software at
SQLiteStudio to edit the file, which can display a spreadsheet of all the waypoints. Then you can paste them into your own spreadsheet, and add a cell in each row to create the proper GPX format from other columns. I used this:
="<wpt lat=""" & B57 & """ lon=""" & C57 & """><name>" & E57 & "</name><desc>" & F57 & text(G57,"YYYY-MM-DD") & "</desc></wpt>"
(oops, I forgot the time from column G... might edit this later...) used to build a GPX file something like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gpx xmlns="
GPX 1.1 Schema Documentation" xmlns:gpxx="
http://www.garmin.com/xmlschemas/GpxExtensions/v3" creator="CALTOPO" version="1.1">
<wpt lat="36.12345" lon="-117.67890"><name>Some bogus waypoint</name><desc>2023-01-08 </desc></wpt>
<wpt lat="36.234567" lon="-117.0987654321"><name>Another waypoint</name><desc>2023-01-08</desc></wpt>
</gpx>
If this looks complicated, private-message me if you want one converted. It's just a few minutes.