Topo Software

t’s Thanksgiving Holiday and it’s snowing heavily outside, temperatures are in the teens and what else could I be doing other than planning my next trip! Since Colleen and I received gift certificates to REI (Thanks Ted and the Hatchett’s), I purchased another copy of Gerry Roaches 14er book (mine was falling apart and missing 30+ pages from previous trips and pesky marmots) along with some Topo Software from DeLorme. I then could really let the nerd inside of me take over and immediately I cross-referenced my GPS waypoints and track logs from my Rino and matched that up with the contour lines and geographic data of digital USGS Quadrangles and the topo software to output beautiful, gps-precise topographical maps, brilliant 3d renderings, along with useful route elevation vs. distance profiling! Woohoo! I plotted all the 14ers and made a map of them which can be found here. There are two maps, one in 2d and one in 3d. The black mountains represent 14ers I’ve summited, and the red ones are ones that I have not summited yet. They are divided into their respective ranges and sometimes they are so closely bunched together that 3 or 4 overlap each other which is why it might look confusing to you. Above is just a teaser of Longs Peak. If you want to see the bigger pictures for Longs, go to that trip report, or just click here. Over the winter I will update my trip reports with information from my GPS as I get around to it. Work is keeping me extremely busy and with Christmas coming up I don’t think I’ll get much done, but hopefully before climbing season rolls along again next summer! Thanks for checking up on me!