HIKE 734 made a hiking trail map!

[Jen]

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/members/a ... mode=story

[pitamakan]

There are a couple of very cool things on that map. One is that the trail lines are color-coded according to how much elevation gain they have, which I think is a great idea ... it gives you an easy visual sense of the relative exertion that different routes will require.

The other interesting thing is that Jake ranked all 88 of the hikes he listed in order, from best to worst. According to him, the Highline is #1, Snyder Ridge Trail is #88. It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that! (I ended up really disagreeing with some of his assessments, though ... like Gunsight, which he has way down at #16.)

Anyhow, I think it's a great project!

Mark

[smahurin]

Ya I already got mine. Its a really sweet map. I definitely recommend picking one up.

As pitamakan said it gives color coded "difficulty" on the trails and it lists mileage as well and in general is a really nicely done map. I like the fact that he ranked his hikes and provided commentary, but even if something like that doesn't interest you its a fantastic hiking map in general because of the other features.

[Deb1741]

I just got the map today (ordered it Saturday night). It looks awesome and I already know that it will come into good use on my grandson's and my next trip to Glacier. We will be there the end of July for a 3 night backpacking trip and 3 days of of day hikes.
Deb

[derek.larson]

I also received my map the other day. I wish he had ranked some of the routes between Kintla Lake and Goat Haunt. Does anyone know why he didn't? I also wonder how he would've ranked Akamina Ridge and the Alderson-Carthew trails in Waterton Lakes National Park compared to the GNP hikes, just to get some perspective.

Anyways, at least I know I've chosen a lot of Jake's top hikes for my upcoming trip.

[pitamakan]

I was also surprised that Jake omitted some of the hikes in the park's northwestern sector, which is my favorite. While a dayhike to Boulder Pass isn't a reasonable goal for Jake's target audience, a shorter portion of that trail would be, and he left the Kishenehn-area trails off the list, as well. It's especially puzzling because his list does include the Dutch Lakes and North Fork Belly River routes, which are utterly insane recommendations for a novice Glacier hiker.

I guess I should just be happy that he left a couple of my favorite destinations off his list, because it might keep the trails a little quieter.

[smahurin]

I wasn't really surprised that wasn't included. Anything in between kintla and hole in the wall is a huge hike (from either side). I don't have my map in front of me but I think the longest day hike by mileage he included was gunsight (20miles).

I suppose hole in the wall is a 20mile day hike from goat haunt but that would require the ferry both ways which makes it pretty impractical for the average hiker. And for the small group of people who are interested in 20+ mile day hikes, a trail description and relative ranking probably isn't as important as they likely already have a decent grasp of what they want to do.

I think the map has two very different sells to two very (or somewhat) different sets of people.

1. For the avid glacier hiker its a great tool as its a nice topo with all the trails shown, mileage listed and trail slope color coded onto the map. The hike ranking and descriptions are useful but probably not the primary reason for purchase.

2. For the recreational glacier hiker who only visits a few times its a great reference showing some of the more popular hikes by Jake's reckoning as well as some nice short trail descriptions. The trail slopes would also likely come in handy for this type of hiker.


But thats just my take on it.

[pitamakan]

Jake's website now has a list of the day hikes that are included on his map. You can see it here:

http://www.hike734.com/hiking/

The online list is pretty cool ... you can sort the trails by Jake's personal ranking, length, location, elevation gain and other factors. Definitely a good reference!

[hike734]

I stumbled across this thread as it had some traffic to my site and I love it! One thing about Glacier that I love is so many others love the Park as well and we have great conversations. I'll weigh in on a couple of things about my guide so you can see behind the scenes.

1. I color coded trails so people could see steepness. I have always felt that "Easy/Moderate/Difficult" was ineffective for the muddy middle of the rankings. I felt that some people found distance to be difficult while others, it was about elevation due to factors such as knee pain or just being from sea level.

2. I didn't include Waterton primarily because I just didn't have room. With any creative endeavor, you have restrictions. Mine was the size of the paper. I'm using a standard synthetic paper size (notice it's the exact same size as the NatGeo map) which restricted me to the amount of info I could have as well as the size of the map. The interesting thing about Glacier is that it seems taller than it is wide, but it ends up being square. If I would have included Waterton, I would have had to make the map even smaller which I already was struggling with. I didn't want to split it in half as that has always been a bee in my bonnet about the NatGeo map and what I love about the USGS map that keeps it on one page. For me, the marriage of nice map and guide together necessitated the entire map on one side and the guide on the other. With a book, you just add another page. With a map, you cut it out.

3. Ahhhh, rankings. To say that ranking the hikes by desirability was difficult would be an understatement. There are so many factors that come into play. What do you prefer? What is too long? What is too short? What was your experience when you did it? Is this waterfall better than that waterfall? The way I ultimately decided to do it was say, "If someone who has never been to the Park before came up and asked you, should I hike Grinnell Glacier or the Highline Trail, which one would you recommend?" This led me to ranking them the best bang for the buck in many instances. For those seasoned in the Park, Trail of the Cedars isn't even a consideration while most people visiting the Park (that get out of their cars) will not get past hike 25. I expect people to disagree with me and I think it's great! My hope would be that someone wouldn't think that a hike that was in the 50 range should be in the top 20 or a top 10 hike should be in the 30 range. Most people that are coming to the Park don't want a bad hike, so they're relegated to the few that show up on a top ten list. If this was your one and only trip to Glacier and you were here for 5 days, you want to make them count. My guide can also serve as a tie-breaker for those trying to decide.

4. One of the great things I've seen with my guide is that it's given people an option to explore more. A lot of people have come up to me and said that they now have a bunch of hikes to take their grandkids on now or they weren't even aware of half of the hikes. I often forget about hikes myself and, as lame as it sounds, will reference it and go, "Oh yeah, I forgot about Otokomi Lake!" The other cool thing is that I've seen people use it as a sort of checklist which helps them get out more. That makes me super happy! I've had families buy one for each of their kids. In the future, I've considered adding a check box or a line that you can write the date that you did it.

5. The North Fork and Goat Haunt. That was tough. Kishenehn was hard because it's just tough to recommend as a day hike. I'm not sure it was a straightforward enough hike for me to put it in there. Of course, the same could probably be said about the North Fork of the Belly River. My other omission would be Lake Francis which I still debate about. That whole Northern Traverse section from the Belly River drainage, up Mokowanis, across Goat Haunt and out either Bowman or Kintla is difficult for day hiking. I also considered doing the entire Highline as well as I know numerous people do it. I guess I just see that as more of a backpack.

6. The nasty outliers. One may wonder why I included Snyder Ridge, Howe Ridge, North Fork of the Belly River, etc. I think my primary reason is that I didn't want people to hike them... unless they REALLY wanted to hike them. When you look at a map and see a trail, you think, "Oh hey! There's a trail there!" If you've been on them, the word "trail" is loosely used. I wanted to lift the veil on them a bit so people would say, "I know that this trail is going to involve route finding, creek/river fording, bushwhacking, downfall, etc and I still want to do it" instead of "giving it a whirl". I felt that it was safer to tell people about them than to ignore a trail that exists hoping that if we didn't talk about it, they wouldn't hike it.

Anyway, thanks for talking about the guide and spreading the word. I'm overwhelmed by the positive response and love that it leads to discussion... including the criticism. It means that I'm striking a nerve. Understand that I ranked the trails in all humility and without the expectation of being "right". It was my opinion to help people move along. The fact that people disagree shows that they hiked the trails as well and are now qualified to have an opinion. :D

[calicotraveler]

I just bought one of these maps yesterday. Very well done and different than other Glacier hiking materials I've seen. I like the way it's organized. Tells me just what I want to know. Thanks!

[Jeff E]

I ordered my map a few months ago from the Hike734 website. Jake has a few hikes on there that I had not previously given any thought to. I am looking forward to using the new map during our upcoming trip Glacier in a couple of weeks. Gonna have two full weeks to hike my favorites as well as try out some of Jake's recommendations.

[Ravekid]

I have a question about this map. I recently took a map and compass orienteering class to learn how to find ones location on a map. It was put on by REI and the information was great. One thing that we used were maps with longitude lines, though I'm not sure if we needed them. They were used as a reference to have the compass pointing as straight north as possible. Does this map have those lines, or are those lines really needed as obviously one can likely get a compass pretty close to being pointed straight north without the lines? I'm thinking about ordering this map instead of the National Geographic map(s).

[wnysteve]

I have a question about this map. I recently took a map and compass orienteering class to learn how to find ones location on a map. It was put on by REI and the information was great. One thing that we used were maps with longitude lines, though I'm not sure if we needed them. They were used as a reference to have the compass pointing as straight north as possible. Does this map have those lines, or are those lines really needed as obviously one can likely get a compass pretty close to being pointed straight north without the lines? I'm thinking about ordering this map instead of the National Geographic map(s).

The Hike734 map does not have longitudinal lines; the National Geographic map does, at least tick marks of longitude at the borders. The added value of 734's map, I think, is the commentary he provides for each trail and the color-coded elevation gain lines, both gained from his experience. But if you are actually going to use a map for orienteering, keep in mind that the Geographic map is a 1:100,000 scale. You may want to supplement this with a USGS topographical map of your hike area, which has a 1:24,000 scale.