Google Earth

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

Been spending time searching for and looking at trails on Google Earth. You can see trails from space. Sometimes you can even see hikers on the PCT on Google Earth. I’m wondering how helpful this is. What I mean is, one of the worst trails in my local area is the Hurricane Deck trail. You can see the Hurricane deck trail on Google Earth. But if you are on the ground trying to hike it, it’s difficult, overgrown, your clothes and gear likely to be torn to shreds. I’ve been trying to search for the Buck Creek trail which I don’t know if anyone has actually hiked from the middle portion to Sewart Mountain since 2011. Every now and then I can see bits of the trail. But then I remember how I can see the whole Hurricane Deck trail and it is a terrible trail. So how helpful is Google Earth? Have you used Google Earth to find routes or old trails that nobody hikes anymore?

[Kattt]

Nice topic. I use google earth to locate animal trails. It is really helpful in open areas and not helpful at all for areas under tree covers ( pretty obvious I know…). I have found animal trails that come up from the creek and then around a coyote bush and were it not for google earth I would have missed them. I know this is not what you asked by I imagine it is quite useful for the trails you are talking about.

[Mike B]

I use google earth for big picture stuff.

Some of the things I will look at or for are major landmarks, elevation changes, vegetation, mountain peaks, social trails over passes above timberline, scouting shorelines of high mountain lakes for fishability stuff like that. I will use it to fit what I have seen on a topo map into something that is closer to conditions on the ground. If you can get a file with trail points you can overlay it over the map and get a feel for how the trail moves through the terrain.

[Lester Moore]

90% of my navigation planning is done with a combination of Caltopo.com and Google Earth. Caltopo’s various map layers let me locate the trails and export the tails as KML file for importing into Google Earth. Once in Google Earth, I can fine-tune the trail’s position and route by seeing where it actually goes in Google Earth. Google Earth also shows what kind of terrain the trail goes through (scree, boulders, tundra, Forrest, etc). You can then pull that back into Caltopo and print out a very accurate trail position map with UTM grid overlay for GPS navigation.

[Bill in Roswell]

Caltopo is excellent. An alternative is that you can download decades old scanned USGS topo maps (various standard scales), download the TIFF or PDF with coordinates for the topo map. Then you can import the USGS map and it will snap to the correct coordinates for that map. As such, the terrain image will now appear in 3D form with topo map data, especially elevation contour lines, peak elevations and such. Trace the old historical trails in Google Earth for a modern view. Cool stuff.

 

[Bill in Roswell]

I should add that Earth will let you adjust the transparency of the map later.

Diane you are right about looking very different in person vs Earth. Most ppl need to have been in similar terrain to have an idea of how an area may look in person. That is why I find having the topo layer available. I’ve found remains of old pioneer trails via USGS topo maps from the early 1900s.

[Aaron]

I once tried to use Google Earth to identify a walking route from Santa Cruz to San Francisco, sticking to the Santa Cruz mountains, avoiding private land and road walking as little as possible. You quickly find out that what looks like a walkable path from a satellite view isn’t always accessible.  I did find a fair number of trails running through state parks along the way as well as rough logging roads from various eras. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of road walking, sometimes along dangerous shoulders. I had the theoretical route mapped from Google Earth saved on my phone and used Backcountry Navigator to log my actual route as I went. I made it as far as Half Moon Bay but couldn’t seem to find a route free of gated private roads leading back into the hills. I later identified what looked like an accessible route, but it required more road walking along Highway 1.

I know I backed up that satellite data somewhere and I wish I could find it, because I keep meaning to revisit it and improve the route. The idea of a relatively aesthetic, off the beaten path hiking trail from Santa Cruz to SF is appealing to me, even though it’s probably not entirely possible.

So to answer your original question, definitely very helpful as long as you keep your expectations in check and prepare for the reality of the terrain to surprise you.  Comparing or overlaying the apparent route with a topo map and 3D data is probably a good idea

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

Here’s a follow-up. I used Google Earth to identify visible segments of a terribly overgrown and rarely used trail. I actually was able to not only find these segments by aiming for the waypoints I created in Earth, but I could recognize some of them from having stared at the imagery so long. There was one spot where I was tangled in some vegetation and looked over to see one of these recognizable places and aimed for it and sure enough, it really was a small section of trail.

Earth was not very helpful for man-made road-walking segments. It is hard to see in Earth where there are barbed wire fences or private property, and sometimes DOT will throw up barricades and close roads, or you will otherwise be forbidden access.

 

[Terry Sparks]

Hi Diane, I see that I’m late to the party but thought I could pass along some info.  I hiked the deck twice last year and its in far better shape than most realize. I got off trail twice on the first hike, which was mostly user error and hiked every step of it on the 2nd hike.   The only real tough section was the eastern 1/3rd from White Ledge to the Lost Valley Trail. After hiking it, the LPFA was up doing a week long maintenance project on this section, so I’m sure that’s improved.  The rest of the trail is in good to very good shape.

I use Google Earth from time to time, but I have found the Gaia map source ”satellite with lables” to have better resolution so that is what I use most of the time.

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

I use Earth to do archeology research.

[Craig B]

I don’t use it for trails, but I do use it to try and see what the view will be like from peaks.  I’ll decide to climb a certain peak or not based on this, looking to get the most spectacular view.  I also try to get some idea of what the best rout up to a peak is, but unfortunately Earth flattens things out a lot and it’s hard to tell.

Off topic, but does anyone know of software that will give an accurate 3-D picture of the landscape that you can view from any angle?

[obx hiker]

Craig it’s possible you are bumping into the limitations of any visual display. I think google earth may have been somewhat designed for use with a joystick. Any “gamers” reading this may be able to provide some insight there. I find it easier to explore and verify objects on the horizon using google maps with the shift key and my mouse. Better more sensitive control. It takes a lot of practice to get competent at flying around in google earth.

Like Lester I use Google Earth and Google maps together with Caltopo and have explored both for some time now to pick routes in places like @ Cedar Mesa getting in or out of places like Grand Gulch and off-trail routes in the Wind River Range and San Juans etc. as well as to get the feel for all sorts of locations like new cities or auto routes. Major historical sites, navigating around some foreign city like Paris. Checking out the scene of some recent current event like the Straights of Hormuz. Lots of uses.

I find the biggest limitation and trickiest part for back-packing with an emphasis on “off-trail” is that you can not determine with certainty that there isn’t a difficult vertical transition on a particular route. The software or resolution just will not positively identify all vertical ledges or drop-offs/walls etc in the @ shorter that 30-40 foot range and a series of 15 foot vertical rock ledges can be a show stopper. You can however usually identify sections of a route where that might be an issue. Then since the “problem” is more precisely defined sometimes you can go online and find the answer, or even get that answered right here on BPL like 2 sections/ transitions someone recently verified here for me! ( Thanks!)

Google Earth/Maps is also not perfectly accurate at revealing or showing precisely what the actual vegetation looks like but gives a pretty good representation. For example you might be looking for a little patch of trees right up against treeline at high elevation and on the software what you see looks like some low shrub but on the ground it is actually a nice little pocket grove. Fine detail stuff like that.

In the east the problem is tree cover. Sometimes the entire trail section, substantial waterways, as well as ledges etc are hidden under the leaves. And again the software algorithmic identification of how to display the vegetation, like Laurel thickets in the Smokies, is not very reliable. But all that aside both are excellent tools!

Here’s a link to an example I recently stumbled across where evidently google maps is exploring the possibilities of 3-d mapping; I guess using drones. 3-D Cliff Dwelling

If you look at the same spot in Google Earth the difference is dramatic.

I fervently hope Google does not or is prohibited from pursuing this sort of mapping in culturally and archaeologically sensitive areas. This particular site is kind of a “roadside” attraction so I guess not that big of a deal but the possibilities are disturbing.

[Jerry Adams]

https://www.peakfinder.org/?lat=44.8847&lng=-122.0957&azi=339&zoom=5&ele=1655

shows what it would look like from a particular viewpoint, identifies peaks

[Paul McLaughlin]

I have used GE quite a bit for terrain information, but I would not depend on any aerial photo based source as regards trails; so often, a trail that is little used has portions that are very clear and easy to follow interspersed with portions that are completely and utterly gone. That’s one of the reasons I tend not to try to follow faint or little-used trails. At lower elevations it just becomes a brush-bash that is not fun; at higher elevations I find it’s faster and easier to just navigate as if there were no trail in that area.

So an aerial photo may show the nice clear parts of the trial and then you get out there and discover that the rest of it is just plain gone.

[Author]

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