I have grouped these three items together because they all fall under the general category of the basic plans you make before setting out on your adventure. If you don't know where want to go, how to get there, or what conditions you'll be experiencing, a fun outing can turn for the worse very quickly.
Maps and Navigation
Misc Mapping Links
Maps: I always take a hard copy of a map with me even in areas that I know very well (or at least thats the plan). In Colorado, where outdoor activities are a way of life, you can find commercially available maps for essentially anywhere you want to go. Having a "quiver" of maps available has made spontaneous trips to mountains possible. An additional benefit is that the commercial maps are generally printed on waterproof plastic and can take a lot of abuse.
Some examples of commercial map companies:
Caltopo: The various commercial maps are never the ideal choice as they inevitably cover too much or not enough of the region for your planned adventure. Your best option for maps of the backcountry is caltopo.com. You can make your own custom maps which you can print yourself or load onto a handheld GPS unit. The one downside is that since you print the maps yourself on paper, they wear out easily, especially if they get wet. Storing them in a gallon size ziplock freezer bags keeps them dry and offers some minimal protection.
Some examples of commercial map companies:
- National Geographic Trails Illustrated: these are by far the most common and widely available. They don't seem to be as detailed as some competition.
- Sky Terrain: An excellent option that is based in Boulder. https://www.skyterrain.com/index.html
- Latitude 40: My personal favorite. www.latitude40maps.com/
- Beartooth Publishing: The standard maps for the Wind River Range as well as excellent coverage of other areas of Wyoming, Montana and Arizona. http://www.beartoothpublishing.com/
- Tom Harrison Maps: Seems to be standard choice for California and the Sierra's. tomharrisonmaps.com/
- Cairn Cartographics: Covers various areas around Missoula Montana including the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. https://cairncarto.com/
Caltopo: The various commercial maps are never the ideal choice as they inevitably cover too much or not enough of the region for your planned adventure. Your best option for maps of the backcountry is caltopo.com. You can make your own custom maps which you can print yourself or load onto a handheld GPS unit. The one downside is that since you print the maps yourself on paper, they wear out easily, especially if they get wet. Storing them in a gallon size ziplock freezer bags keeps them dry and offers some minimal protection.
- You can search through the large collection of user maps here: https://caltopo.com/find
- Some cool tips on making aesthetically attractive maps in Caltopo on this Reddit post
- Some other tips here
GPS File Depot:
Boulder Area:
Boulder County GIS Data: gis.bouldercounty.opendata.arcgis.com/
Boulder City Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) GIS Data: https://bouldercolorado.gov/open-data/tag/osmp
https://viewer.nationalmap.gov/basic/
US Forest Service (USFS):
National Park Service:
Wilderness Areas:
Misc GIS Links:
GPS coordinates grabber: http://boulter.com/gps/grabber/
- https://www.gpsfiledepot.com/
- A great resource for free topo maps that can be loaded onto a handheld GPS. In general, most of these are organized by state.
- I've found that the map, "My Trails", covers nearly all trails I've found myself on.
- The state specific topo maps such as "cotopo" (Colorado), "uttopo" (Utah), and "wytopo" (Wyoming) are excellent and seem to be highly accurate.
Boulder Area:
Boulder County GIS Data: gis.bouldercounty.opendata.arcgis.com/
Boulder City Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) GIS Data: https://bouldercolorado.gov/open-data/tag/osmp
https://viewer.nationalmap.gov/basic/
US Forest Service (USFS):
- https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/
- https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php
- Coverage of geospatial datasets is in general excellent. The one exception is Roosevelt National Forest (Boulder Area) which has a number of dead links...
- Paper maps available here: http://www.nationalforestmapstore.com/
National Park Service:
- https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/
- In general, I've found data from NPS to be better than that from USFS. The RMNP data is particularly good and forms the skeleton for my RMNP caltopo map which I have supplemented with my own data and some standard mountaineering routes.
Wilderness Areas:
Misc GIS Links:
GPS coordinates grabber: http://boulter.com/gps/grabber/
GPS (Global Positioning System)
A technical description of GPS: https://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html
Google Earth
This program can't be beat for satellite images and 3D morphing of terrain elevation data.
Weather
Andrew Skurka has recently (June 2018) published a tutorial about predicting backcountry weather. I would like to think he saw my tutorial below and thought it was a great idea :).
General Resources:
- www.mountain-forecast.com/
- opensnow.com/
- Colorado specific page: opensnow.com/dailysnow/colorado
- Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC): avalanche.state.co.us/
NOAA/NWS: weather.gov
This tutorial was made on Dec 12, 2017. This external website may undergo changes....
The current scientific understanding of global weather patterns is truly astounding. There are certainly some misses, but in general I'm amazed that when the forecast tells you it's going to start snowing at 2pm, it usually does. Websites like Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com) are great for day to day forecasting of driving conditions to and from work etc but their backcountry predictions are insufficiently detailed.
A much better option is the freely available forecast based on complex numerical simulations forecast made by the National Weather Service (a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, or NOAA, which has a major campus in central Boulder). The power of this service is that even though physical weather stations recording live data are limited, the NOAA simulation models the entire country. This means that you can be get a very accurate prediction for literally anywhere you want to go.
A much better option is the freely available forecast based on complex numerical simulations forecast made by the National Weather Service (a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, or NOAA, which has a major campus in central Boulder). The power of this service is that even though physical weather stations recording live data are limited, the NOAA simulation models the entire country. This means that you can be get a very accurate prediction for literally anywhere you want to go.
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2. This takes you to a more detailed page organized by county where you can narrow your selection down further.
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3. The third page gives you what looks like a typical weather forecast you'd get from many different weather forecasting organizations.
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4. This last step is most important. If you scroll down towards the bottom of this page, there's a box called "Hourly Weatherly Forecast"
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5. These graphs are the most valuable part of the entire forecast. You can select for snow/rain accumulation, wind speed (which can be of critical importance in the mountains), thunder/lightning probability, sky/cloud cover (if you are interested in taking photographs). These days, I take a print out of this graph stapled to my customized caltopo.com map set on every trip I go on.
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