Best Topographic Maps
 

I am really pleased with the quality of the Trails Illustrated topographic maps of The Grand Canyon, Island In The Sky and Arches National Park. I wonder if they have one Showing Ouray area and The Rubicon Trail. Anyone doing some serious overland off-roading should look into these series of maps. I think it would be a great idea to start a thread on coords for last chance gas, supplies, points of interest to Jeepers and so on.

Delorme makes some pretty good topo maps that cover different states and even show 4x4 trails.

If anyone on here would be interested, I have an idea. I am a GIS analyst...fancy term for electronic mapper with expensive computer stuff. I can take topographic maps from ANYWHERE you want and overlay points, trails, parks, etc all over them. I can do the same with high-resolution satellite imagery from just about anywhere in the United States and Canada...maybe Mexico and a few other places as well. Basically, all I would need is a set of GPS coordinates (UTM/Zone or lat/long WGS84) for points.

All topographic maps originate from one source: the USGS. Resellers, such as Delorme and National Geographic, overlay layers of information using GIS software (e.g. ArcGIS). These map compositions are then brought into illustration software to make them look prettier for final production.

That's exactly what I use...ArcGIS. You can get topographic maps from the USGS for FREE online if you know where to look. They come as geo-referenced TIFFs (usually) and can be used as a base for other maps using external data such as GPS points.