Across Utah Map

[Jammer]

Hey All --

As alluded to in previous threads where I complained some about the new Google Maps, I've been working on a personal mapping project. For a while now I've wanted to share the data I've collected on my long hikes. I keep all of this in Google Earth, but wanted to post it via my website with some options for user customization. I finally found a solution that I'm semi-happy with, so I thought I'd share:

www.AcrossUtah.com/map

There's not much to see at first, but use the side panel to turn on Water Resources, Points of Interest, Obstacles and other categories to see the bulk of content. Note that most of the placemarks are clickable and pop-up more information and in most cases a photo of the location. For instance, the Water placemarks pop-up with more detail on my experience re: reliability.



The map is primarily focused on my treks, so it might not be of use to everyone. But hopefully some will find it helpful for their trip planning across common ground.

It's an on-going process as I add polish with new features and additional content. But, if I waited until I was 'done', I would never get it online. In that light, let me know what you think and definitely ping me if you hit any snags with specific browser/OS set-ups as I haven't really done testing on various platforms.

Thanks,
- Jamal

 

[slc_dan]

Amazing resource! Thank you so much for sharing all of this. I'm personally trying to piece together a route in that upper Paria area. This helps a lot for that small portion, but I'm more excited about new route I can use this for, such as Happy Canyon.

Love your stuff Jamal, thanks for sharing.

 

[pixie1339]

Wow Jamal! That is really cool. Thanks for sharing this. I think a lot of people will find at least parts of this map useful.

 

[Nick]

Outstanding, sir. When are you going to rewrite the BCP map for us to dynamically load 1,000 trip reports?

 

[uintahiker]

I like your results. Very excellent! I'll use it in the future.


I took a slightly different course with my map and broke it down into different areas and linked into each area from a master map. Overall, meh, but it works just the same. The submaps are much better.

<iframe src="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/embed?mid=zxMfh3VMG9a8.kP1d5AxMANVE" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

 

[Jammer]

I took a slightly different course with my map and broke it down into different areas and linked into each area from a master map.

Yeah -- I like that method too. I actually thought about going this way as well, but wanted to be able to toggle on/off layers across different areas. I started to investigate a way to do both, but gave up. I also got to thinking it might be better for my audience if they are looking at thru hikes to see adjacent regions at the same time.

I really wanted to only show select POIs at higher zoom levels. I figured out how to do this, but it didn't work with my KML exports and I didn't want to have to re-create that content. I also talked myself into the idea that this could be "a feature not a bug" as this way one can easily tell where placemarks are w/o zooming in and 'fishing'.

Thanks,

- Jamal

 

[Riggs]

Wow, really cool. Since I haven't been on bcp long, hadn't read about your long trips. I just read one of your old reports, loved the story of going across Canyonlands. I've never done very long backpacks in the desert, but with a resource like this for water I can see doing it, thanks.

 

[Tater Head]

Wow, great resource. Thanks for sharing...