Maps

Try making your own maps using caltopo.com

Ever use the caltopo website?

Mytopo.com  I’ve ordered several maps from them over the years.

Go to the USGS store website, download whatever 7.5″ quad you want for free- the most recent maps are multilayered PDFs- add or remove whatever layers you like (adding shaded relief is handy), crop it however you like, then take them to a FedEx or UPS printing store and print it out on whatever type and size of paper you like.  (They’ve been recently updating their archaic website- which is long overdue- so that link might break.)  Scale is 1:24,000.  All you pay for is printing, and that’s almost certainly less than $1 per sheet.  If you have a capable printer you could of course print them yourself.  The USGS 7.5-minute quads are the gold-standard maps for CONUS.  In fact, the Trails Illustrated and other commercial maps you pay too much for are derived from these datasets- they’re a US government product, and thus free for them.

EDIT– As an example of detail, here is a crop of a 7.5-minute quad in Pecos Wilderness:

This is the 2013 series, but the older maps often actually have better detail in the form of old unmaintained trails.  You’ll get a better idea of the map quality if you save this to your computer and open it there, but this is a printscreen image, so if you zoom in too much you’ll start to see pixels.

True.  On the other hand I’ve found a lot of B.S. on Trail Illustrated maps, too.  Yes, they will often update closed trails and campsites for new printings, but I have never seen them fix trails or topography that are simply wrong.  So they aren’t checking ground truth either, Brother.  They are (at best) checking NPS closure notices.  If what you care about is topography, then the 7.5-minutes quads are still the gold standard.  This is especially apropos for someone who frequents designated wildernesses rather than e.g. national parks, such as the OP.  One frustrating thing I’ve noticed is that the most recent versions of the USGS quads- say, 2000 and later- often don’t have any trails shown but the very largest.  That’s why I mentioned looking at the older maps, too.

EDIT– Whoa.  PMags’s post just disappeared.  I’ll bet he just tried to load more than one URL link (the BPL forums has an as-yet-uncorrected bug that can erase posts when you do that).  For those who are wondering, he mentioned that the USGS dataset hasn’t been updated since the 1990s, and that this has implications for campsite and trail closures, recent landslides and other topography-altering events, etc., and that thus the private sector was becoming more relevant.  I would point out that this refers to complete revision.  But they have since done minor and basic revisions.  For instance, here is some marginalia from that Truchas Peak map:

As you can see, yes, contour data was last updated in 1999.  But other items have more recent updates.

Oh, I don’t claim the TI are perfect.

I have sneaking suspicion since NatGeo bought them a decade or so ago, the “people on the ground” to check the trails are very thin.  They based their maps on old quads. I ran into that aspect two weeks ago. A trail from shown on 2008 map did not exist. I suspect the original printing of the map (1984) is what TI based their current map on.

PS. Yeah..I noticed my post vanished too..thought it was me ?!?!?! :)

I was going to add this link:

http://www.directionsmag.com/entry/us-topoa-new-national-map-series-2012-update/300690

Basically, the USGS is not doing field research anymore and just putting what other cash strapped federal agencies tell them (and these agencies  probably use the same old topos, too! :D) or what the private sector tells them.

I’ll also add OPEN SOURCE maps are becoming increasingly relevant, too. A friend does this for the Catskills for example. Some apps such as PDF-MAPS dot COM have a whole slew of these maps available.

I’d add another link, but I don’t want that post to vanish. :O

Where do you find info that the USGS isn’t doing field research anymore?  They have all sorts of new data products.

“In all cases, new content depends on receiving data from authoritative sources. For non-natural map features, the USGS no longer gathers data by direct field observation or from primary sources.”

Which is why post-1990s updates may not really be updates… Just be aware.

And individuals are taking it upon themselves to make their own maps to share. (or, really, updates of current maps)

Ah, I see.  You mean that no one is out there with a sextant and chains and wearing a USGS polo shirt verifying road locations.  But they’re still collecting data.

Here, I’ll repost your quote with better emphasis:

“In all cases, new content depends on receiving data from authoritative sources. For non-natural map features, the USGS no longer gathers data by direct field observation or from primary sources.”

So the non-natural data just comes from other more specialized government surveys.  For instance, the USFS provides the data on their roads from their surveys, the FRA provides data on railroad tracks, The BLM’s Public Land Survey System inputs it’s data, the Army Corps of Engineers collects data, etc.  And, hell, their road data is from a commercial source (TomTom).  So, admittedly, the USGS is currently acting as a sort of a clearinghouse.  (This all from your link.)  And they are still correcting errors and changes in topography that are reported to them.

I mean, this isn’t totally unreasonable.  Barring Mount Saint Helens and similar events the gross topography doesn’t change often or drastically, and most that do are related to hydrography, which they specifically do update, or acts of man, which admittedly they may not since that is so decentralized.

EDIT– I have to disagree strenuously.  They are “real” updates- it is newly collected data.  They just aren’t complete updates- not all data is updated at once.  Jesus, Brother, the first complete survey took over 50 years, 1940-1992!  Back when that started the USGS was the only game in town, which isn’t the case now- as you can see surveying is much more decentralized now.  And most importantly, the regions that they spend the most effort on keeping current are public lands, which is sort of apropos to us.  Yes, the USGS map of southern Manhattan is, I am quite certain, ridiculously out-of-date.  (Mean USGS data currency is 1979.)  But I don’t really care, either.

I will add that I’ve gotten great use out of the 7.5′ quads.  But then, I admit that I’m the sort of guy for whom puzzling over old data is sort of part of the challenge.  (I’m a bit of a mapping fanboi.)  And I too enjoy wildernesses much more than the national parks.

Assuming that the person producing them is a competent surveyor, I’m sure that those mapsets you mentioned are great.  I would have a lot of trepidation about a map produced by some random dude on the internet that I didn’t know anything about, though.  But that’s sort of the whole problem with the internet, isn’t it?  Knowing how much to trust the sources.

Hmm..after all that you stated above, you truly, really, think the government maps are accurate for field use as the years go by?

The answer is no..otherwise people would not be taking it upon themselves to create their own maps.

http://sectionhiker.com/the-digital-map-conumdrum/

Government agencies are cash strapped. And field people are among the first to be cut back. No matter what agency it is. And, as noted above, due to govt red-tape, sometimes the data collected is not even shared.

I think Philip put it best: “ While the speed in which new maps can be produced has increased greatly and the cost dropped, the completeness and quality of backcountry maps has actually decreased.”

Just to be clear, I use 7.5 quads. I also recognize their limitations in 2016. Along with other sources. Print maps, or the maps that are to be printed out to be more accurate, aren’t sexy (revenue producing) so they suffer more and more in our digital age.

A wise backcountry traveler will mix and match commercial, open source and govt mapping sources depending on the area.

Happy trails..or happy off-trails as the case may be…

Go to the USGS store website, download whatever 7.5″ quad you want for free- the most recent maps are multilayered PDFs- add or remove whatever layers you like (adding shaded relief is handy), crop it however you like, then take them to a FedEx or UPS printing store and print it out on whatever type and size of paper you like. (They’ve been recently updating their archaic website- which is long overdue- so that link might break.) Scale is 1:24,000. All you pay for is printing, and that’s almost certainly less than $1 per sheet. If you have a capable printer you could of course print them yourself. The USGS 7.5-minute quads are the gold-standard maps for CONUS.

This is what I use. I actually like old maps with old trails that might not be used or viable anymore, those are the areas I head to first.

Just yesterday I saw a Reddit post from a backpacker near Loon Lake.  They couldn’t find a trail that was marked on both the USGS and the OpenStreetMap layers, and those map layers also showed the trails dead-ending soon after anyway.  (I checked both the new and old USGS topos.)

Like most of you have mentioned, I’ve encountered such missing trails before, and for me this is the most significant difference between the old maps and the new:  The new maps tend to lack trail information, which significantly reduces their utility, but there is also a chance the trails on the old maps are no longer there.  In the case above, the current trail was visible via satellite and also included on the US FS map, so both the “new” and the “old” maps were incorrect.

My takeaway is that it’s worth looking over several map sources for the same area before setting out; I no longer assume the classic USGS topos are all I need.  There’s also something that bugs me about the new topos, but I can’t yet put my finger on it.  Probably something about the labeling compared to the hand-drawn versions.

-J

On a somewhat related note, I saw a few news articles recently on Australia’s datum update.

In the US, the NAD83 and WGS84 datums are usually considered interchangeable, at least for people using consumer-grade GPS equipment.  NAD83 is a “plate-fixed” datum and WGS84 is an “Earth-fixed” datum. The average difference between them, I believe, is about a meter or so; less in the East and more in the West.  I was thinking the movement was only 1-2cm a year, but it seems it actually may be much more depending on where you are in the country.

But, back to Australia… their little island is moving North at about 7cm per year. The local datum (GDA94) is now about 1.5m offset from the WGS84. To resolve this, an updated datum (GDA2020) will shift coordinates in their local datum 1.8m at the start of 2017. This overshoot is intended to make the coordinates align with WGS84 and the ITRF2014 reference framework on 1 January, 2020.

Still, in all these cases we’re talking only a few meters of error, which is pretty irrelevant for hikers.  Things would be much messier if the coordinates were used to specify things like property boundaries.

-J

Mags,

No.  I’m saying that excepting a few small areas where enthusiasts have made excruciatingly detailed maps, that USGS is the best there is.  That’s what I’m saying.  Sure, there are people out there making their own maps for very specific areas.  Know what topo data they use?  Answer- USGS.  Know what Trails Illustrated’s base topo data is?  Again, USGS.  Then, yes, they correct whatever deficiencies they perceive, and that’s what I meant by “gold standard”- everyone uses their data.  Who wouldn’t?  It’s free.  But USGS covers the entire country, and that matters.  Does your Catskills buddy have a map for me for Dark Canyon, Utah?  I’m guessing no.

And, frankly, my mind boggles at the proposition that having multiple agencies constantly updating data in their field somehow results in poorer maps.  They get updated more regularly because of it.  Other than the relief (which generally doesn’t change fast) the oldest data on that Truchas map was 5 years.  That’s pretty damned good, Brother!  I have to wonder what sort of standard you expect, here, for an agency that’s mapping the whole country?  Yes, there tend to be neglected areas where no government agency has jurisdiction, but T.I. and your Catskills buddy aren’t updating maps for southern Iowa, either, so I don’t see that as a very valid objection.

I’m just reacting to what I perceive as a poo-pooing of USGS maps, so maybe I’m being too touchy.  They’re great maps.  And, frankly, I find your criticisms of the updates to be weak, for the reasons that I delineated.  Yes, if some hobby cartographer wants to make ridiculously detailed up-to-the-minute maps of the Catskills as a labor of love then I’m certain that they are awesome maps.  For the Catskills.

But is your buddy is going to map the continent?  And if he did would he have data younger than 5 years for every grid square?  Again, I’m guessing no.

I am, I will admit, very annoyed about the trend for not showing trails on the latest USGS topos.  I mean- that’s exactly what we all use them for!  I’m guessing that NFS isn’t submitting that data or something, and USGS feels that it can’t ethically keep making maps with the old trail data.  (Which is not unreasonable of them.)  Still- grr.  That’s the niche for these enthusiast maps- keeping details that a small audience finds important up to date, like trails for us hiking weenies.  OTOH I’ve read some links where USGS claimed they will add trail layers “in a couple of years”, so maybe it’s coming…

And frankly, I don’t what highly detailed trail maps of designated wilderness areas.  More people would go there, and I like my privacy.  :)

I am, I will admit, very annoyed about the trend for not showing trails on the latest USGS topos.  I mean- that’s exactly what we all use them for!  I’m guessing that NFS isn’t submitting that data or something, and USGS feels that it can’t ethically keep making maps with the old trail data.  (Which is not unreasonable of them.)  Still- grr.

Sounds like we both agree with what I’ve been saying.

Clearly, yes, I agree with you on the lack of a trail layer in recent USGS quads.  We can lay that to rest.  That’s one reason I mentioned getting the older map series- they have trails marked, albeit old data.

So “The latest USGS maps don’t have a trail layer” is a valid criticism.  But maybe we’re mis-communicating, because that isn’t what I was hearing.  If I may be forgiven for a straw-man, I was hearing “The USGS data is old and out of date, and decentralizing the data gathering among many agencies makes for a less accurate map.”  Which is hogwash as I have shown.  I’m not going to poo-poo privately gathered trail data, if that’s what you were actually talking about.  Heck, modern GPS makes that almost trivial.  Topography, hydrology, infrastructure, etc. would be harder, and which is what I thought you were talking about.  I was confused because I said from my very first post that you have to check the older quads if you want trail data, which sort of grants that the data on older maps is older.

So, my bad.

Unfortunately, it looks like trails are a low priority for USGS (there are, after all, many people other than hikers who use USGS maps).  Annoying, but there you have it.  I just hope that if they ever do add a trail layer “in a couple of years” as I read on one comment, that they try to get updated data.  You’d think that NFS and NPS, at least, could provide that for maintained trails.  I mean, NATIONAL PARKS?  Come on!  I have to go back to the 2000 series to see trails in Yellowstone?!?  NPS simple has to have that data somewhere!  We need to start a petition or something…

USGS accepts data from “authoritative sources” to update their maps.  If one of us wins the lottery that might be a productive nonprofit to set up- a trail mapping organization.  Google has already done a bit in large national parks.  And USGS does already have a program for people to register to help out by submitting data on some infrastructure, like churches, public buildings, cemeteries, etc.  I wonder if they’d be interested in accepting trail data some day?

~~thread-drift alert~~

I get that the USGS are the gold standard but I get very frustrated using hem here in Arizona because none of trail numbers of forest roads are labeled with the current numbers. Does anyone know the history of when or why those all changed?

Have you checked the layers in the PDF?  You may have to turn on road labels.  It’s the “Road Names and Shields” layer.  Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the NFS roads weren’t included.  It’s really just that it’s a low priority on the new maps.  And it’s worth noting that the USGS keeps slowly adding new layers to them as they get to it, but it takes a while.  “Years”, in fact.