Make Your Ouw Free, Customizable Topographic Maps
Christine Huang
For the wanderlust: check out Kevin Kelly’s detailed instructions on how to print out your own topographic maps for free. Kelly explains that while topomaps, a must-have for any serious hiker, can be ordered for pretty cheap through the U.S. Geological Survey site, there are many advantages to downloading the PDFs and printing them yourself:
Go to the USGS Map Locator page, and search for the quad you want. You can type in an “street” address just like in Google. Click on the appropriate miniature map and then choose which scale map of the area you want to download. The PDF files of the standard 7.5 minute topo map will be between 6 and 16 megs. You’ll need Photoshop or equivalent to crop and size them. Be prepared to use some heavy duty processing power. These are big, very detailed maps.
Once prepared, you can then print the topo map out yourself if you have a wide color printer. But since you can order the topo map itself for only $6 (plus postage) from the same government website, why not buy if you have the time?
There are four good reasons you might want to download and print your own topo maps.
1) It is instant. When you need a topo today, it’s worth the hassle of messing with files.
2) It is selective. Way too often the spot you are looking for is in the corner of 4 maps, which means you have to order all four just to center the chosen area. You can eliminate 3 extra maps by combining the parts you want into one map.
3) You can print it on Teslin map paper (see below) which holds up in field use.
4) It can be lots cheaper.
For full instructions, visit KK’s Cool Tools blog.
[via kottke]
Posted on: Friday, August 8, 2008 at 11:39 am 
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