Thursday, July 30, 2009

Map Update: Colorado - Front Range Region

A new book "Colorado Trails Front Range Region: Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails"
has been published by Peter and Angela over at Adler Publishing (who have apparently moved from California to Colorado).

Therefore I felt it was time to "upgrade" the Colorado Offroading Maps a bit. I have added all the book's "Trailheads" to the map and will be adding tracks as I can obtain them. Additionally, I have had a couple of trail submissions in the area so there was even more data to add. [For a free Google Earth file of this route see: Colorado Offroad Trails]

Thursday, July 23, 2009

New Trail Map: Utah Arapeen Trail System

A few weeks back I announced that we had split our Nevada ATV rides into several separate maps. The Mesquite-Bunkerville and Gold Butte trails have been given their own files.

Well, the addition of the Arapeen Trail System has made the Utah Trails file so large that it just begged to be split — so I did. [For a free Google Earth file of this offroad route see: Utah Arapeen Trail System]

In a previous post I whined a bit that it had been quite difficult to produce the Google Earth maps of this offroad trail system. The available maps, some even produced by the USFS, were not accurate or detailed enough to produce a .kml file.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Utah - On the Moon: New Google Earth Map

Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has announced, along with Google, that there has been new map content released for Google Earth to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the U.S. moon landing.

As many of you (who "lived through" the last "upgrade" of Google Earth when it completely broke all of our maps) can imagine, the first thing I did was to try it out. It works great… and it does NOT break our maps.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Grandpa's Arapeen Offroad Trail System

Without knowing it I was one of the early visitors to the Utah Arapeen Offroad Trail System when I stayed during the summer with my grandparents - before either it or ATV's were even "invented." [For a free Google Earth file of this route see: Arapeen Trail System]

Grandpa Allred, it turns out, also without realizing it, constructed and improved most of the roads for the trails during his years working for the USFS on the Manti-La Sal forest.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Entertainment: Hale Centre Theater
"Hello Dolly"

After the marginally directed and acted play "Treasure Island," the Hale Center Theater has done a lot to redeem itself in the production of Hello Dolly - a true "classic" based upon Thorton Wilder's book "the Matchmaker."

The T/Th/S cast was superb, to a tee. I heard "Barbara Streisand" a couple of times when Dolly Levi went on in her rapid fire way; but, not when she sang her numbers - I didn't want to, Jennifer Hohl was doing just fine, thank you very much.

Monday, July 6, 2009

New Mesquite Offroad Trails Map

For some time I have been worrying about combining all the trails we have ridden our ATVs in the winter snowbird headquarters area into one composite map. I finally bit the bullet and just spent the time to do it — and here it is: Mesquite-Bunkerville Riding Trails

It must be said, that these are the "verified" trails in the area, not those on the ubiquitous "old time" or "marketing" maps handed out. No frills, no descriptions, no markers (except area labels), just a plain ordinary map of where you can take your bike all in a GoogleEarth .kml file.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

New Google Earth Map - "Nevada Trails"

It's finally done! After nearly 8 months of Google Gazing (Earth that is, GE) and programming, I've finally published the updated Nevada Trails GE Map over on the official web site, offroading.home.att.net.

That is, the "Western Region" with actual route maps, descriptions and waypoints for over 30 SUV/ATV trails East of about Reno, South of I-15 and North of US-6. There are maps to Ghost Towns, Mining districts, abandoned and active mines, canyons, back-country camping and plenty of scenery.