Why do some GA icons appear as treasure chests (allowing me to see they are GA caches), while others look exactly like GC caches? I really wish they were all identifiable at a glance as GA caches. I often look for GA caches to find, but unless I click on them I won't know many are GA caches.

The GPX file itself does not set the icon, rather the GPS unit does.

There's documentation out on the net on how to change icons, however I don't think you can in Garmin units based on the listing site, only the cache type.

Do you use GSAK?
If you do, you can upload caches from GSAK to your garmin after having set the cache icon to something that means more to you than a treasure chest or GC-style icon. I've created a new cache in GSAK with coordinates of my home and an icon of GC headquarters. It's very easy to spot it on the map screen of my garmin 62.

Make sure that you have selected version 1.0.1 under My Cacher Zone -> My Settings -> GPX version.

Edwin

I don't use GSAK, but only because I don't know how to use it. People have tried to explain it to me, but what I actually need is a physical demonstration, and I have never had the opportunity for that.

1.0.1 is selected.

I do use GSAK, but I started at a time when we didn't have smartphones and all the info. GSAK is great for having all the caches offline on your PC should you need them, and of course you can have caches from multiple listing sites (in reality now just GC and GCA relevant to us). It could then export to a mapping program like Oziexplorer which you can plug in to a GPS receiver and do moving maps on the laptop to see where you are while driving along. It would also export the waypoints to your GPSr back when we were lucky to have more than an arrow on the unit to point the way and no maps.

Ozi was written by a guy who wanted to see where he was while 4WDing, but it proved a great tool for geocaching before we all had maps on our mobile phones. Of course sourcing the maps if you want topo was potentially expensive but if you are online at the time it can use google maps etc.

I am sure there are many features in GSAK I have never used as well, but I find it useful to import the pocket queries to, export to the map and plan a day's caching run. Once onsite I will just use the mobile if I have coverage. I also use GSAK to import the PQs, run some selection on it to update ACT/NSW data on GCA once a week with any new caches or new logs.