by Jason Abbott
Originally Published in the IAMC Newsletter, November 2014
If there’s a paradox within the desire for adventure, it’s knowing how to find your way to the unknown.
The most reliable means of resolving the paradox is with the experience of fellow riders. Reports and plans at motoidaho.com, advrider.com and other sites provide routes and trail conditions in words and pictures. If you’re looking for adventure, it’s a great place to start.
But what if you find nothing that suits your tastes or timeline? Or you want to combine or augment a few rides seen there? You might ask for advice but answers don’t always arrive in time.
That is when we can take advantage of the substantial ease, speed and accuracy of modern mapping software. There are a thousand ways we might approach it — different software, different steps — but I will share what has worked well for me.
If I’m starting with only a compass direction — north in the summer, south at other times — I will open Google Earth, a freely downloadable program, and make sure to enable the Photos/Panoramio in the lAfters selection at the lower left. You should then see little photo icons sprinkled everywhere as you zoom into Idaho.
Hold the shift key while moving the cursor to tilt the ground. That helps to see mountains and canyons that might be of interest. Click the photo icons to see the actual photos. They’re usually clustered around points of interest. Then fly around and explore, making a note of things you’d like to see.
Once I’ve decided on several candidate waypoints, I switch to Google Maps in the browser. I imagine Bing Maps, MapQuest or others would work equally well. I use the map software to layout the basic route with the “Get directions” functionality. It favors the fastest route so I usually zoom in a bit and grab its automatic route line with the cursor and pull it to my preferred roads, like a rubber band. If you haven’t done this, it might take a little practice to get used to the interaction. It’s something that takes me just a minute to get the total distance and expected time.
Now we’re getting close. I have some destinations and a route. Be sure to notice if the distance exceeds your fuel range and plan accordingly. If I’m getting off onto dirt roads and trails, I also want to be sure they aren’t somewhere closed. Wilderness is always closed so I’ll check with the maps linked from wilderness.net if I’m not sure of boundaries.
(Actually, I’ve loaded those maps as overlays in Google Earth. Getting that going is a bit beyond the scope of this article so I’ll leave it as an exercise for the adventurous.)
The second land issue I’ll verify is private property. I don’t want a route that depends on crossing private land. If you do a search for “Idaho land ownership” you’ll come up with maps that help in this regard. (Here too, I’ve been able to set these up as overlays in Google Earth.)
A final invaluable map reference is the Idaho Trails site: trails.idaho.gov. Regular map software doesn’t show anything smaller than a dirt road. Here in Idaho, that leaves miles and miles of 4WD, ATV and motorcycle trails.
I find when using the trails site it’s easiest to temporarily de-select the trails from the LAfters menu while zooming to my area of interest. Otherwise it’s a mess of confusing lines. I also usually switch to the topo basemap. (You’ll be surprised to learn these too can be loaded into Google Earth.)
Once I’ve verified that the route distance is reasonable, the land it crosses should be open, and I’ll see things that interest me, I’m ready to roll. Happy Trails!