Posted: 3/12/2008 7:44:09 PM EDT
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Anyone know of a good source for these? My home, work, and parents home form a big rural highway triangle. Home to Work = 35-40miles NE (depending on route) Work to parents =24miles W parents to home = 15miles S I would like a topo map that shows all three locations, but the only ones I have found don't come close. Should I just get three separate maps? Or does someone make one that can cover this kind of area? I would like to be able to take off on foot cross country to get between any combination of these locations if need be, so a good map and compass are pretty important, I just can't find a map like I want. |
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Don't know if you tried this yet: Garmin Topo Maps I also heard that you can actually create your own map using Google Earth on the more trail-specific Garmin handheld units, but I haven't figure it out. I've had a Garmin GPS 60c for about a week and I'm still figuring it out... |
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DeLorme Sells Topo Atlases, by state... Or you can order USGS Topos from USGS. Mytopo is OK. Also you might look into the Delorme Topo software, the maps that come with it are OK though somewhat lacking in detail, but you get $100 worth of purchase power toward detailed ovrlays, satellite views as well as aerial photos... |
maps.google.com Free worldwide satellite maps that you can copy into paint or whatever and print. |
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www.geocomm.com/ This is where I get my quad sheets from - for around $30 you can get an entire county (collarless). FWIW as we have most every quad in Texas on disk nowadays here at work and as I caught them tossing all our hard copy original last year and I now have every quad in Texas laying in my living room at home and yes it's alot and a big pile.....  mike |
| I dunno... to get a usable sized map that will cover 30-40 miles, the map itself would be damn near 6-8 ft square. I find the 1:24000 or 1:25000 size to be the most useful, in terms of showing actual terrain features. This is the size of .mil personnel topo maps and of the USGS maps. I'd just grab all the ones in between (you should be able to get each sheet for ~ $5 from USGS. Couldn't be more than 5-6 map sheets. Plus, it would give you much better detail. |
A big +1. I have lived in three state in the last 4 years and I buy one everywhere I go. |
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I usually make my own custom ones on Topozone also. Reason being is that many (most) of the times the area I want covers two and up to four Quads. With Topozone you can drag and drop the area into one map. It may seem a little spendy at first, but when you consider you're buying one map instead of four (and only carrying one) it's not bad. |
Big +1 here. Your state/region will run you about $100. These are good qual raster scans of USGS quads. You can seamlessly print multiple quads. It includes the 1:24,000 (7.5 minute quads) , 1:100,000, and 1:500,000 scales and also has some neat "fly around" and route planning features. It's the best out there IMO, because it's actual USGS quads and not TIGER line data or some company's vector interpretation of the quads. |
Well I mentioned to a friend that I needed to get some topographic maps and turns out he had some software on his PC. You are right, to get the area I wanted on one map would most definately render the map useless, more or less a road map. I made a handfull of individual maps that cover the area needed and provide good detail. I am fixed for maps, for the time being at least. 
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+1 I was going to suggest Topo Zone, but pcsutton beat me to it. I have the DeLorme topo software for WA, and a LOT of old USGS topos, but I usually use Topo Zone, Terraserver and/or Google Earth for planning backpacking trips. I just print what I want onto 8.5x11 pages, fold them in half and put them in a large Zip-Loc. If you have an REI in easy driving distance, they might have a custom map kiosk that will allow you to choose and print the area you want. |
A smooth talking Marine Corp recuriter lured away my free IT guy. So I need a little help here: One can get from Terraearth all the topo maps you want, but how does one print off just whats showing on the screen? TIA 
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