To get a map, you must first upload the GPX file somewhere (Google Sites works well). Once you have an URL for your GPX file, such as

http://share.jointwork.net/tdr_file_site/tracks/Lola_Montez_One_Way.GPX

then you can generate a high-resolution topographical map of the GPX trail by creating the URL as follows:

http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=http://share.jointwork.net/tdr_file_site/tracks/Lola_Montez_One_Way.GPX&t=t4

The “t=t4″ parameter above selects new very high-definition topographical maps that are simply stunning to look at — better than any other ones I have seen.

If you use and appreciate the service, Joseph tells me that he would appreciate donations, to help with the cost of hosting and serving map quads  (I should add that I have no relation to him, except of being a very happy user of his maps).

This is what Joseph wrote about how these new maps were created (reproduced with permission):

The person behind CalTopo.com is Matt Jacobs and his site is running the ‘civilian’ version of a map tool that he originally wrote to support wilderness search and rescue (SAR) activity. Matt’s desire for the highest quality topographic maps coincided with a massive project by the U.S. Geological Survey to make very high quality scans (660 pixels per inch) of all the topographic maps they had previously published. These scans are online as ordinary PDF files, they are not the new GeoPDF file format.

A vast amount of work was done by Matt to invent a system that would process those new very high quality USGS scans into map ‘tiles’ suitable for display by software (like Gmap4) which uses the Google Maps API (Application Program Interface). These newly created map tiles are hosted on the Amazon servers. There are some blog posts on Matt’s website that provide some insight into the processing steps needed in order to convert the USGS scans into high quality map tiles. 

In late 2011 Matt contacted me and inquired if I would like to display his tiles with Gmap4.  Since the scan quality of these map tiles is significantly better than anything else available and the tiles do not have any watermarks or ads, I quickly agreed. You can compare these map tiles (t4 Topo High) and the user-selected amount of hill shading (Menu ==> Hill shading) to any other online topographic maps and decide for yourself which maps look best.

Ultimately whether or not Gmap4 can continue to display these watermark-free state-of-the-art adjustable-hill-shading topographic maps will be up to you along with the other Gmap4 users.  If you enjoy using Gmap4 and Matt’s best-of-their-kind maps, please consider making a donation that I can share with Matt.

Kudos to Matt and Joseph for making such great maps available to us all!

(Note: you should listen to the recordings using headphones; laptop speakers generally cut off low frequencies.)

You can download the audio here.

Here’s interesting information on frozen-lake sounds.

Coyote in Tahoe Donner. January 2, 2012, 7:29am

Our “animal camera” caught sight of a coyote at 7:29am, Jan 2, 2012!

We knew there were many coyotes around (they were howling at the Moon behind our house during the Thanksgivings weekend), but this is the first photo of them we were able to get.

After much investigation, I finally found a GPS I truly like: the Garmin 62s.  I won’t do a review of it — there are many already to be found on the web.  Here is what I like about it:

• You can load on it your own maps, and there are very many maps available for free at GpsFileDepot.
• Bright, easy to read screen.
• Batteries last easily over one day.  I had the 62s on from dawn to sunset attached to a backpack strap in temperatures constantly below -10C (and occasionally, below -18C), with wind, and the batteries (Eneloop rechargeables) lasted perfectly.
• Fast to use, even with gloves.  When you want to mark a location, you just need to hit “mark”, then “enter”.  This marks the spot with a number — but that’s fine with me: when I hike / ski I typically don’t want to fiddle too much with a GPS; I leave the finessing of place-mark names for when I am back home in front of the fire.
• Never loses reception, not even in a deep forest in a valley, under a snowstorm.
• Very easy to carry.  I put it in its slip case, and attach it to my left backpack shoulder strap.  Out of the way, yet very easy to read at a glance.

I tried (at an REI Store) the Garmin Oregon 450/550, but I think that for my style, they would be too slow to operate. I prefer the 62s, where you can very quickly scroll, change display information, or mark a location with a few quick button-presses. Buttons are much better in bad weather, when you might be wearing gloves (I use my GPS a lot while cross-country skiing). I think I would also prefer the 62s to a Garmin Montana. Essentially, the Oregon / Montana are very nice for good-weather geocaching or ambling about, but for fast use in any weather, the 62s is better.

Garmin also sells the Garmin 62st, which compared with the 62s, comes with a 100k topo map of the US pre-installed.  I advise against the 62st.  The 100k topo is only marginally useful for hiking.  All that the Garmin maps give you, over the free maps available at GpsFileDepot, is the terrain shading.  The terrain shading is very nice on a PC; on Garmin GPSs it is displayed too dark, to the point of making the map difficult to read.  When using Garmin maps on my GPS, I have found it best to switch off the display of terrain shading, at which point the Garmin maps are no better than the ones you can get at GpsFileDepot (I like this one in particular for California).  Thus, my advice is to get the Garmin 62s, and to use its larger available memory to load maps from GpsFileDepot.

Now, instead, it is maps nirvana.  You can have free topo maps of most places in the US on your Mac / PC!  Here is how.

Head over to Garmin, and download their excellent Garmin Basecamp software.  Install also  Garmin MapInstall and MapManager (here is a link for the Mac version).  Then, head over to GPS File Depot, and download free maps.  The ones I prefer are those by John_M; for the Western US in particular I recommend this one.

You can install the maps on your Mac (or Windows box, I guess), and use them from Garmin Basecamp.  It is simply wonderful.  Of course, Google Earth is also very good to explore places, but I find the ability to view and print topo maps invaluable for hiking.  And perhaps it’s just me, but I still get more information out of a good topo map than out of Google Earth, when it comes to hiking.

First, you need to record a GPX track file describing the hike.  Most GPS can record a GPX track (I personally use a Garmin 62st; I will write later about it).  Android and iPhone phones can also record such tracks.  My favorite app for recording GPX tracks on Android is Maverick, which has support for offline maps from many sources.

I then edit the tracks using Garmin Basecamp, a free application from Garmin which lets you (among other things) view and edit GPX tracks.  I edit the tracks removing any portion that is unrelated to the hike (such as the driving to the trailhead, or any side-trips that are not part of the main hike).  To view and edit the tracks in context, I generally load in Basecamp some free base maps obtained from gpsfiledepot; my favorite maps are the California Topo and the maps for the South West and North West.

Once the GPX tracks are edited, I use the excellent gmap4 service to obtain maps displaying the GPX tracks.  To this end, I upload the tracks to a web server, and I form an URL of this form:

http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=http://share.jointwork.net/tdr_file_site/tracks/Squaw_to_Shirley_and_High_Camp.GPX&t=t4

which, when you follow it, produces a map like this.

Most normal thermostats can be set to a low temperature before you leave the house for some time, but there are a couple of problems with this.  The first, and more easily solvable, is that many thermostats (such as the old and beloved round Honeywell ones) cannot be set below some temperature, such as 50F.

But the second problem is that you cannot simply set the thermostat on a mountain house to 40F and leave.  The thermostat is going to maintain 40F in the house, but what about the crawl space?  Will the pipes there freeze?  Also, what about the humidity in the house?  Will you find a cold and moldy house the next time you return?

The freezing pipes problem can be solved, to some extent, via the use of heating tape and insulation on the pipes.  But it is hard to ensure that the heating tape heats all sections of the pipes that could freeze.  Moreover, the heating tapes in my house consume 350W when on! — not something you may want to leave on all the time.

So, we started to look for a better solution.  We decided to implement a control system that ensures not only that the house stays above freezing, but that also ensures that the crawl space does not freeze, that the humidity in the house is within acceptable levels, and that the pipe heaters are used only when truly necessary.

The good: we estimate that this system has cut by more than half our use of heating.  It is not uncommon for the heater to switch on only for some 40 minutes in total, in a typical Winter day at Tahoe Donner.

The bad: you need to have several skills to pull this off.  You need to be able to solder wire, to run wire through walls, to connect thermostats to a house heater, to connect the controller to a home ethernet network, and to configure the controller (we will tell you how).  If you want to control the heater remotely, you also need to open up your ADSL or cable router to incoming internet connections, and you need to set up a dynamic DNS service so that you can access the controller state conveniently from a remote location.

If you do all that, however, you will save hundreds of dollars in heating each year, and more than that, you will know that your use of a vacation house has led to acceptable energy use!

We wrote these detailed instructions; we hope they can be useful to you!