Trip Planning Tools

The question came up in the Northwest Region forum about what maps people use to find forest roads. I posted up a link without realizing that it's not very well known, but it can be very helpful.

www.hillmap.com

The website pulls up two panes that you can pick and choose from a set of maps. You can do a topo map one one pane and a satellite view on the other pane. Both panes will scroll and zoom together, providing complimentary information of the same location.

There's also the overlays, so you can overlay a topo on top of a satellite photo. For example, I usually do topo on the left, satellite on the right. If you click "Overlays" at the top of the screen. On the pulldown, select which map you want to overlay on (whichever pane you have the satellite on), click on the opacity and enter 0.2, then click on "Add Overlay" then select "CalTopo USFS Maps" and it will overlay a see-through topo map on top of the satellite photo. You can play around with different opacities depending on how dark the satellite photo is. They used to have a snow depth overlay which was super handy, but it hasn't worked for me in a while. It's the SNOTEL-NRCS overlay. Maybe it'll work for someone else, but I think that something changed on the NRCS end.

I also believe that some of the map sets are older than others. I think that the ArcGisWorld map is the most up to date. It shows FR numbers and my neighborhood exists. On the CAL Topo maps my neighborhood (built in 1978) isn't there. I'm pretty sure they get there satellite stuff from google, so it should be as up to date as google is.

There are other nifty tools. It says it can import/export .gpx tracks (I haven't tried this, so I can't say). You can make a path and then view things like the distance and elevation profile. There are slope tools for determining how steep a hill is and which direction is uphill. It's a useful resource that might be helpful next time you're heading out to a new area. Enjoy!

 

Totally trying this.

Thanks!