Sheltowee Trace & Bison Way Loop

February 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 5 Miles loop
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: +++
Elevation Relief: 300ft ^^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Overlook in fall

The Sheltowee Trace spans the entire length of the Daniel Boone National Forest and a portion of the Big South Fork in Tennessee. The section through the Red River Gorge is one of the most spectacular, with this short segment visiting some of the most impressive overlooks and challenging side trails. Indian Staircase is an unofficial trail that climbs up a steep set of cliff ledges and can be found on the printed map. Although this loop uses part of a paved road, hikers have a chance for a short walk to the Red River suspension footbridge, the longest in the forest.

Suspension Bridge

Gladie Welcome Center
[Read more…]

Filed Under: All Hikes, Hikes: Red River Gorge, Hikes: Sheltowee Trace

The Rough Trail

February 1, 2010 by 1 Comment

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 8 Miles one-way
Difficulty: +++
Scenic Views: ++++
Elevation Relief: 500ft ^^^^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Rhododendron grove along Parched Corn Creek

The Rough Trail is longest trail through the heart of the Red River Gorge. Many side trail options allow hikers to increase mileage and create additional loops. For the ultimate Gorge experience, connect this trail with the Swift Camp Creek Trail.

Junction of Rough and Swift Camp trails
[Read more…]

Filed Under: All Hikes, Hikes: Red River Gorge

Wildcat Trail Loop

February 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 6 Miles loop
Difficulty: +++
Scenic Views: ++
Elevation Relief: 400ft ^^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Don Juan’s Garden

The Wildcat Loop begins at the eastern terminus of the Rough Trail. The trail descends into Sons Branch while passing large stands of rhododendron and hemlock trees. At the intersection with Swift Camp Creek, hikers can cross the creek to find large camping areas. After about a mile hiking up Sift Camp, Don Juan’s Garden presents a majestic grove of hemlocks along an impressive cliff known as Wildcat Wall. After returning to the ridge on trail #228, the Wildcat Trail, hikers can find abundant lady slippers in spring.

Wildcat Wall
[Read more…]

Filed Under: All Hikes, Hikes: Red River Gorge

Rock Bridge Loop

February 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 1.5 Miles loop
Difficulty: +
Scenic Views: ++
Elevation Relief: 300ft ^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Rock Bridge

Rock Bridge Scenic Picnic Area is the start and end for this easy hike. This trail descends into the Swift Camp Creek drainage area and visits Creation Falls, one of the largest falls in the Gorge, and Rock Bridge, the only arch with a stream flowing beneath it.

Creation Falls
[Read more…]

Filed Under: All Hikes, Hikes: Red River Gorge

First freezing night in the Great Smokies

September 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Overnight the temperature dropped to 25° F at the Newfound Gap weather station, elevation 5,000 ft. Mt LeConte at 6400 ft above sea level recorded a low temperature of 31° F.  The slight warming at 1,400 ft higher in elevation is caused by a temperature inversion that most frequently happens in autumn mornings.

The lowest temperature recored at Mt. LeConte for September 29 was 24° F and that happened in 2003. The coldest night ever recorded since 1988 was -22° F, which occurred last February 4.

Station reports for 7:30 am, September 28 – 7:30 am, September 29:

STATION             ELEV    HIGH    LOW     PCPN    SNOW DEPTH
SUGARLAND CENTER    1600     75      45     0.00
NEWFOUND GAP        5000     62      25     0.00
CADES COVE          1900     73      44     0.00
OCONALUFTEE         2040     79      42     0.00
MOUNT LECONTE       6400     57      31     0.01

http://www.outrageGIS.com/weather/grsm
Filed Under: Great Smoky Mountains, News

All weather cams are up

September 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Look Rock, Sept. 24

Look Rock, Sept. 24

After a few months of intermittent outage, all four weather observation cameras for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are now operational. We archive full-day animations for 3 webcams and the visible satellite view of the park every day at:
http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/yesterday.

For previous days, you can access other days by replacing “yesterday” with the 6-digit year month day combination. For example, for September 24, 2009 replace “yesterday” with “090924”and create this link:
http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/090924.

For highest resolution images, just click on the preview images.

The two National Park cameras are located on Look Rock and Purchase Knob. Look Rock camera overlooks most of the park. The two National Forest cameras, Cold Mountain and Joyce Kilmer Wilderness, overlook small portions of the park.

Now let’s watch fall pass in the mountains!

Filed Under: Great Smoky Mountains, News

Woodland Art Fair, Aug 15-16

August 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Come down to the Woodland Art Fair the is Saturday and Sunday and check out our new maps. We will have the spring release of the Red River Gorge and the Sheltowee Trace South, both of which were designed and printed in the past 6 months. The map to out booth is provided below: [Read more…]

Filed Under: News

Sheltowee Trace Suspension Bridge Quiz

August 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

How many scenic suspension bridges exist on the Sheltowee Trace and where are they? If you think you know the answer, then please take our quiz and you might win some free maps.

Directions: If you can name or locate all of the suspension bridges on the Sheltowee Trace, then you can receive our new Sheltowee Trace map for free. Name all of the them and tell us which is the largest and which is the smallest, then you’ll get three free maps of your choice.

How to submit you answer: Email your answer to contest@outrageGIS.com beginning Friday, August 21, 2:00pm EST. You must be the seventh correct email to win. You only get one try and we’ll take your first answer.

If you’re not the 7th person to answer either question correctly, then you will still receive a bonus coupon to use at our online store. Just give it a try!

Ok….which bridge is this? If you need a little help, visit http://www.sheltoweetrace.com

Filed Under: News, Sheltowee Trace

Lexington Community Gardens

July 13, 2009 by Leave a Comment


London Ferrell Community Garden

Locations of Lexington’s community gardens. Gardens maintained by Seedleaf: Nourishing communities by growing, cooking, sharing, and recycling food.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: News

Neck deep in the Sheltowee Trace

June 16, 2009 by 4 Comments
Overview map from the Sheltowee Trace South (in development)

After the successful release of our new edition of the Red River Gorge Backpacking Guide last May, we’re now deep into making a comprehensive map of the Sheltowee Trace.

This is our most ambitious mapping and publishing project yet. We’re showing the entire 282 miles of foot, equestrian, and multiuse trail at 1:32,000 scale…that’s 1 inch to a 1/2 mile. So in this publication, you’ll be able to hold the full Trace in your hands…all 12 feet of it.

Let’s think of it a different way. To show this trail adequately, we’re designing and printing over 24 sq. ft. of map at full-color. That’s equivalent to making a 4×6 foot map that labels every stream, destination, and trail. This is a generous allotment of time and paper, but the trail’s incredible beauty and future deserve it. The Sheltowee is Kentucky longest hiking trail and frankly certain parts need to be used more by hikers.

Like our other maps, the Trace map will be a fine navigation tool. We’re dropping in latitude/longitude grids for GPS navigation, mile markers for the Trace that have been meticulously measured, 50-ft topographic elevation contours, canopy cover, and connecting trails and trailheads.

We’ll release the South edition for the Woodland Park Art Fair this August, with the North edition following shortly after. Each edition will have same format: an overview map that gets you to the major trailheads and the topographic trail maps. The image on the left shows a draft of the overview map. To the general layout of the detailed maps, visit here (note these do not show any text yet, just a preview of how we’re gonna make the Sheltowee).

The Trace is a 286-mile National Recreation Trail that connects recreation areas in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Big South Fork, Cumberland Falls, and Natural Bridge State Park.

Filed Under: Sheltowee Trace

Animations of the Atmosphere

June 5, 2009 by Leave a Comment

As a lover of the atmosphere and sun, I want to see how light and sky change over the course of the day. I also want to see how large-area weather events, such as the passage of a front, impact different places in the Great Smoky mountains. The inspiration behind this page was a desire to record weather changes at different elevations on a mountain and to help the photographer in me better understand a secretive and dynamic landscape.

Enter Yesterday: a site of prior-day animations of federal web cams and satellite imagery located here at http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/yesterday. Note this page always shows conditions for the prior day since they are full-day timelines.

The Great Smokies have about one mile of vertical relief and weather conditions can be dramatically different depending on your elevation. Whatever it’s a line of thunderstorms or fog in the valleys on a calm morning, this is a visual record of evolving conditions…only of course it happens during daylight. For the weather nut who likes to take it a step further, the page gives data from park’s 5 weather stations for the same day….and it’s all archived.

How was it done? After tinkering with ImageMagick and FFmpeg, I made a script that creates full-day animations of the webcams in the Great Smokies and visible satellite images from NOAA. What will it become? Consider it a visual archive of the atmosphere and movements of the Sun in the Great Smokies. Any suggestions are welcome.

Some notes for updates: I haven’t fully utilized the flash embedded video (see the two samples below, top is animated gif and below is embedded flash video). The problem is setting animations in sync together, e.g., sun rises at the same time in all movies. With an animated .gif, I think you simply need to refresh your browser after all of the images are loaded to get a partial sync. A better solution is out there. I can also increase the sampling rate for smoother play; now it’s two samples an hour.

Weather map and webcam animation for the Great Smoky Mountains

Weather map and webcam animation for the Great Smokies


[flv:http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/090603/PurchaseKnob.flv 400 290]

These are also archived, so if you go to the smokies for a backcountry trip, you’ll be able to find your days here.

Filed Under: Great Smoky Mountains, News, Weather

Bike Lexington Month

May 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

So the month of May is nearly done and with it, ends the month-long celebration of the bike and human-powered travel. As a hiker, I often worry about my environmental impact during a drive to a favorite trailhead.

How can I minimize fuel consumption and make better? I reason that if I bike as my primary form of transportation, I will only need to drive during my trips to the woods. This works great if I have a network of safe and continuous bike lanes and trails in the city. Enter Bike Lexington.

I’m proud to say that I contributed a small share to bike community here. I took the artwork designed by Cricket Press (shown by the poster design left) and made the Bike Lexington interactive calendar (shown here), which hopefully encourages people to bike more. Building the site definitely exposed me to vibrant groups and events that helped me stay committed to biking in Lexington.

After this month is over though, biking doesn’t stop. Check out the website for new events throughout the year or join the newsletter subscription to stay updated.

Filed Under: News

Ridge Trail at Cumberland Gap NHP

May 9, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Buy this mapHiker Hiker Cumberland Gap Map
Distance: 16 Miles round-trip from the Civic Park trailhead at Ewing
Difficulty: +++
Scenic Views: ++++
Elevation Relief: 2,000ft ^^
Ownership: Cumberland Gap, NPS

Cumberland Gap Trail Map: $14

Camp Hensley

The Pixel Team hiked up to Hensley Settlement after the Southeastern Foot Trails Conference and it was a fantastic, sublime experience. Sherman Hensley hiked up this mountain in 1903 with his pregnant wife and all of the tools and livestock they could drive. They saw a large, flat expanse on the mountain summit and carved out a pioneer homestead. Two backcountry camps are within 0.5 miles of this historic community.

Ridge Trail overlook

[Read more…]

Filed Under: All Hikes, Hikes: Cumberland Gap Tagged With:

It is all about Light: a photographers dream

April 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment

The past day’s weather has included periods intense light and shadow from very low, broken stratus & cumulus clouds. Rays of love from god shine from heaven through parted clouds; and there was plenty of love in the mountains. Even in these low quality webcam images, you can see golden rays of light and clearly defined ridges. Now what if you were there with a serious camera.

Though the weather overall has been chilly and uncomfortable, it does give some memorable vistas. The more diffuse stratus clouds in the western mountains were lower in altitude and created softer light.

Moon Rise
View from Purchase Knob

Filed Under: Great Smoky Mountains, News, Weather

New Red River Gorge Map

April 16, 2009 by

5th Edition Red River Gorge5th Edition Red River Gorge Backpacking Map

It’s almost ready for release!
A complete remake of our popular backpacking guide with the green maps. This new set keeps all of the great features of the old maps, but in full-color and updated trails and data.

Visit our Gorge webpage to learn more: http://www.outrageGIS.com/gorge

In January we looked at the previous editions, all 2-color with an travel elevation profile booklet, and thought how we could improve it. We had used aerial photography to show landcover type, which did a good job indicating density of canopy, open areas, sunlight, and offered a rustic green background for our GPS trails.

However, most people are confused when they look at aerial photographs…they think hills are valleys and vice versa. This terrain inversion is a significant cartographic problem, but we were confident then when most people *used them in the field* they made sense.

While unique advantages exist using photographs, for the new edition we used a custom created, full-color hillshade that shows forest canopy cover type and open areas. We artificially lit the landscape from the west and eliminated terrain inversion. We added a distinct stream symbol to clearly mark drainage. With 50-foot contours and spot elevations, this new edition offers a handsome way to stay located.Gray's Arch rockshelter

Since most GPS applications are now by default in the latitude/longitude (decimal degrees) coordinate system, we added this graticule to the map. A UTM grid is also labeled. With scales on the corners of maps that can be seen while folded, a hiker can quickly determine distance and locate themselves with a GPS in either dd.dddd or UTM coordinate systems.

We still have all of the trail profiles, side trails, backcountry campsites that were in the previous edition. The new edition actually covers more area and trails.

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14
Filed Under: News, Red River Gorge, Sheltowee Trace
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