Those of us who have been exploring the backwoods for many years spent the majority of our time having poor map information.    Topo maps were either out-of-date or too large in scale to be useful.   Trail maps were rarely to scale and were not very helpful in the field.    Well-researched maps with trail-specific information was rare because the process of marrying topo maps and route infomration was a laborious and inaccurate process.   Thankfully, we can now access good information:

• Google Earth provides air or satellite photography of the surface.
• The projection can be turned sideways for a 3D view.   We can zoom in or use an alternate view.
• Topo maps can be acquired on-line (if you know where to look).
• Google can be used to search for other on-line images.
• From Google Earth or from other sources, we can copy or save images (right click, save image as) as jpegs.
• We can combine maps, images, and Google Earth Satellite imagery.

A good video showing the basic steps can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLzvg2vnUDM&feature=related

A friend of mine (Nic) has been using the "Custom Maps" posted to this site, then using them as "semi-transparent overlays" on Google Earth, then saving them as .kmz files.   As an image, this is the result:

If you have Google Earth, you can "open" the file:

[download id="5"]

To go one more step, we can now take our GPS with us, turn on the Tracking Feature and collect route data, integrating the .gpx file information with a custom map.   We can even take photos and embed them into the map so that others can follow a route and see what you have recorded as a digital photo!   (More on this in an upcoming post).