I had spare time and felt there was an audience for a solid Philmont digital planning map. So, at CalTopo I have a pubically-shared map:
https://caltopo.com/m/TK68
It has the four new 2020 camps that are listed on PhilTrek.com, plus the 2019 (actually 2017 data) edition of the Ranch GIS Department file. The 2019 GIS file included the camp boundary, camp locations, the turnarounds, and numerous peaks marked. I also added several peaks and secondary camp markers using the Open Street Map data. I drew in boundaries for the surrounding land that PSR uses, and cleaned up the ranch boundary corners. Includes a down-sampled copy of the PSR-provided perimeter for the 2018 Ute Park Fire “No-Go Zone”.
With the Itinerary Guide, and the OSM or TF Outdoor base map, you could get a decent map for any trek. In the samples I looked at the PSR GIS trail and the OSM trail differ within one or two tenths of a mile.
CalTopo can export a GPX file if you need that. I have made no comparisons to the GPS File Depot file that has been mentioned in the past, because I don’t have anything that needs GPX files. My map has NO TRAILS, just (many!) locations and boundaries.
HOWEVER, CalTopo has a good Open Street Map layer/option that does have most trails. CalTopo also has an autotrace (called auto-route) function that can draw a custom (and exportable) line along OSM routes. One “gotcha” to watch out for is that the CalTopo auto-route will pick whatever route is shortest, including fire roads and so-called “staff trails” (non picturesque short-cuts) that the ranch does not “encourage” campers to use. The routing behavior can be over-ruled by clicking on “good trails” along the way so the function stays on good trails. There is a brief explanation of the function here:
http://caltopo.blogspot.com/2016/03/auto-routing.html
I had great success using PhilTrek.com to find out what sub-routes connect camps if you search for camps by name. The trails in OSM are named/labelled by what camps are on the ends of them.
DISCLAIMER:
On the trail at Philmont, Scouts should buy and use official PSR-printed maps for navigation. This file is provided for planning purposes and might not match the latest documents published by Philmont Scout Ranch. If you use this as a primary navigation tool at Philmont, you are on your own.
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