Someday I am buying a topo map

[Sky King]

The Bike Hermit and I woke up to so much forest fire smoke on Saturday we couldn't see the foothills less than 1/2 mile away. Pulling up the DEQ air quality reports we determined heading West to Oregon was the best bet. Packed the hammocks, the bikes and food. 2 1/2 hours in the car found us at Austin Jct. on Hwy 26 and Hwy 7 in Grant County, Oregon. The nice lady who runs the store/bar/cafe directed us to county road 20, runs along the middle fork of the John Day river. Beautiful and mostly forest service land. Found a great site for hanging the tents, a little close to the road but virtually zero traffic. Great road for biking - we had a nice 22 mile noodle before dinner.
Sunday we drove over to Sumpter and decided to ride to Granite, a mere 15 miles away. The only thing was the map we were using failed to point out the minor mountain pass between Sumpter and Granite 7 mile climb started at 4424 elevation and tops out at 5864. About an 8 mile descent into Granite and I was very happy to see the store/cafe. I promptly downed a Squirt for some energy (we forgot the nuun) Then of course, we had to ride back to Sumpter. Was super thankful the temp stayed below 90 degrees. The area is beautiful so if you are ever close, go there, despite an August Sunday the traffic was very light.
Some of the area is on the Adventure Cycling's Transamerica route.
We are now making plans to take a nice 3 day tour and do a loop (but I am buying a topo map first)

[jessmarimba]

Can download full quad maps for free, if you're interested, at store.usgs.gov (select map locator and downloader).

[Irulan]

You can't really just buy topo maps anymore. But there's lot of great software that have topo information that you can get and custom make a topo map. REi doen'st sell them any more You could probably mail order paper ones from USGS

Anyone remember the days of having to put four topo maps together because your location is right on the corner of one?

[SadieKate]

You can't really just buy topo maps anymore. But there's lot of great software that have topo information that you can get and custom make a topo map. REi doen'st sell them any more You could probably mail order paper ones from USGS

Anyone remember the days of having to put four topo maps together because your location is right on the corner of one?

Weellll, we still do at our local map/blueprint store. All four at a time, as you say.

[Irulan]

Weellll, we still do at our local map/blueprint store. All four at a time, as you say.

Even with a USGS office here, we can't buy them any more. REI quit selling them years ago. Nat Geo Topo is decent software - you can center your location too so you only need one map.

[SadieKate]

Oh, I already have them on my Garmin Oregon and, of course, Basecamp software on my computer. But it requires actual work to print them out.

Not to mention, Basecamp is a hog and my laptop is in serious need of TLC (ie., work).

I'd rather ride/fish/run/anything else.

Interestingly, our REI still does have a small selection. Maybe we still have enough Luddites in town to require it.

[bmccasland]

Paper maps do not require a power source. Although I admit I down load and print at work - when I need topo maps, it's for work anyway. And at work I have access to a variety of paper sizes - up to monster huge.

[jessmarimba]

Figured I'd actually really link to the USGS ones now, free downloads.

The USGS Store

We use these for work, and unfortunately I do occasionally have to piece them together because of how our reports are formatted! There are some brand new ones on here that are fun since you can turn various layers on and off in the adobe files.

[Sky King]

Cool, will check out the website. We do have a local outdoor store and a map store that both offer Topo's and they have those amazing printers... When our son was a senior in High School he seemed to be challenged with finding his way home so we gave him a topo map of Boise for Christmas with our house's location circled - he didn't think it was funny but the DH and I still laugh about it.