We are proud to have contributed to the recent Daniel Boone National Forest magazine, The Boone Trace. This comely tabloid-sized full-color magazine is the U.S. Forest Service’s official visitors’ guide and welcome publication with maps, photographs, and timely information. With over 700,000 acres, 100+ developed recreation sites, and 600+ miles of trail, this national forest provides ample opportunities to refresh, reconnect and challenge yourself in the great outdoors. The Boone’s Trace magazine is free and should be the first document you read before your adventure in the forest.

The opening paragraph reads, “Dense woodlands, towering cliffs and plunging waterfalls are just a few of the natural wonders found within the boundaries of this most unique forest. Extending across mostly rugged terrain, the forest provides breathtaking scenery, clean water, and an abundance of wood and wildlife.”

The national forest is now divided into four ranger districts; Cumberland, London, Redbird, and Stearns Ranger Districts. The Cumberland Ranger Districts has two of the most popular destinations in the forest, Cave Run Lake and the Red River Gorge. This knobby and cliff-rimmed country is home to historic iron furnaces, rare and endangered plant communities, great arches and sandstone formations, and the rugged Cliffty Wilderness Area.

The London Ranger District is defined by the Rockcastle and Laurel Rivers. Great recreation destinations include Bee Rock, Rockcastle Recreation Area, Turkeyfoot, S-Tree, and the Laurel River Lake. While forest ownership less continuous in this district, many trails (official and unofficial) spline the ridges and creeks for hikers, mountain bikers, and motorized vehicles.

The Stearns Ranger District is home to the Beaver Creek Wilderness Area, Natural Arch Scenic Area, and numerous horse camps, shooting ranges and picnic areas. The area outlines the northern portion of the Big South Fork Recreation Area, which competes with the Red River Gorge for the title, “The Land of Many Arches.” The Redbird Ranger District is not contiguous with the other ranger districts, but off-road vehicle and mountain biking enthusiasts will find the Redbird Crest Trail a fine loop trail.

The Sheltowee Trace is forest’s unifying, long-distance trail, which connects the northern tip of forest with Tennessee’s Pickett State Park. This is the forest’s only National Recreation Trail and is the longest trail in Kentucky. Trail users can find more information at http://www.sheltoweetrace.com.

Magazine designed by Gwen Hensley of the forest service.

Measurement scales, grids, and graticules for our printed map titles. Print them at home and use them in the woods to more precisely locate yourself with a GPS unit set to DD MM.MMM, on a UTM grid, or just measure linear distance.

These handy print outs have other information about the map they cover and fit in the polyzip carry bag.

Remember, don’t rescale these pdfs when you print them.

To download scales, visit: outrageGIS.com/scales

After about a year of design, we’ve made a public draft of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Trail Atlas. The atlas consists of 3 parts.

The first part is a series of 18.25″ x 13″ full-color maps that show the entire trail network, land cover type, miles between all backcountry campsites, pioneer places, a bird’s eye view, and elevations for most landmarks (such as trail intersections, campsites, trailheads, gaps, summits, etc…). The below images link to the 1:96k scale map of the park. For samples of other maps, visit this page. If you would like more detailed online samples, then please contact us and we’ll be happy to provide you access.

The second part is a 4.5″ x 6″ 32-page booklet that explains our trail acronyms, gives cumulative elevation gain for every trail (in both directions), and is a gazetteer for major locations.

The third part is a downloadable GPS data pack for trails, intersections, backcountry features, and other useful information for exploring the park. This data pack is currently retailed here, but with an online purchase of the atlas, the data pack will be offered as an additional download.

We like to think that we’ve created a truly unique and helpful atlas. Our maps have 1-minute latitude-longitude and UTM grids for GPS location. We print in process color, but we treat CMYK as spot colors too, and our goal is to maximize the map’s clarity and readability. Our elevation hillshades are designed with minimal amounts of black ink; that helps separate background and foreground. All of maps are custom created from raw GIS & GPS data and we spend many laborious but loving hours designing the best navigation aids for the areas they cover.

Over the past few months we’ve created some maps that are related to outdoor recreation and trails. While not guides for public recreation areas, they represent smaller cartography projects we like to do. The maps use GPS-captured data, aerial photography, and a slight 3D rendering technique to give the maps a unique and intuitive representation of the geography.

The image on the left is a screen-capture of the Town Branch Trail Plan. The trail is a proposed greenway that connects downtown Lexington, Kentucky with distant Masterson Station Park, one of the city’s largest park. The aerial photography is derived from high-resolution, 2ft-pixel imagery, and is accentuated by a subtle 3D relief. Lexington spreads over a large anticline, a geological feature characterized by a broad uplift of land, and causes the situation that most streams flow away from the center of the city. Elevation relief in the downtown area is slight, but increases dramatically as one approaches the Kentucky River to west and south. Future plans for the map are adding more interactive features, such as pop-up info boxes.

The map to the right is part of 3-part map project for Red River Gorge Cabin Rentals, an exclusive resort area in the Red River Gorge. The maps were a 2D, 3D, and Google map showing cabins, trails, and roads. We GPS-captured roads and trails and created a simple shaded relief map for generic directions, and a more artistic 3D aerial photographic map of the resort.

Here is a quote from their website, “Located in the heart of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky lies a paradise of natural stone arches, caves, rock shelters and towering cliffs all encircling steep, forested slopes overlooking narrow stream valleys.” You can visit thier website here.

Great Smoky Mountains GPS Data Pack
Waypoints & track GPX data for trails, trail intersections, backcountry camps, summits, gaps, and many other locations for backcountry navigation.
Download: 36 megabyte
Format: GPX & PDF
Pieces: Map Guide, GPS Manual, Gazetteer, Data
Ownership: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NPS

Great Smoky Mountains GPS Data Pack: $6

Our data pack contains 16 GPX files, companion gazetteer, and historic topographic map with 1-minute GPS grid. The product is offered only as a 36 megabyte download, which includes all documentation, maps, and data. Buyers have free access to new releases and updates.
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