Wildflower Productions
TOPO!
Interactive Topographic Maps on CD-ROM
Covering World Famous 4WD Trails in California, Colorado, North Carolina (Tellico) and More

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For back country exploring, the map of choice is the United States Geological Survey's (USGS) 7.5 Minute Topographic Series.  These maps include incredible detail including 4WD and hiking trails shown on few if any other maps.   They even show individual buildings in ghost towns and abandoned mines along with small intermittent creeks, streams, and lakes.  The brown topographic contour lines indicate the elevations of the terrain so that the location of mountains and valleys are readily apparent along with the steepness of the slopes.  Each map covers 7.5 minutes of Longitude which is somewhere around 6.75 miles in the central US.  The scale is 1:24,000 or about 2 5/8" per mile.  Each map sheet is about 22" x 27" and is currently sold for $4.00 each by the USGS.  TOPO! packs up to 200 and more of these into each region they cover (the Lake Tahoe area has over 100).  It would cost over $800 to get the same coverage in USGS paper maps!  On top of that, think of the convenience of one or two CD-ROMS versus having to search through a stack of paper maps 200 deep to find the map you want!

And in contrast to the paper maps (and the CD-ROM version the USGS sells) the TOPO! CD-ROM maps are "seamless."  You don't have to change map sheets as you move across map borders.  TOPO! has "spliced" them all together so that you move automatically across borders of individual sheets displaying both sides of the "seam" as you do.  200 USGS 7.5 minute paper topographic maps all spliced together could be over 30 feet tall.

Since the Rubicon Trail is the most famous 4WD Trail in the world, I used the TOPO! Lake Tahoe and Surrounding Wilderness and Ski Areas region for this review.  Loading was quick and easy.  Just insert the CD-ROM and run the setup program which takes only a few minutes.  When I started the program a shaded relief map showing the entire area was displayed.  It was easy to progressively zoom in on the area I was interested in by choosing the Magnifier tool and clicking on the point I wanted the zoomed map to be centered on.  By right clicking the mouse I could immediately zoom to any of the 5 scales offered:

Level 1    1:500,000
Level 2    1:250,000
Level 3    1:63,360
Level 4    1:24,000
Level 5    1:12,000

Since I haven't yet made the pilgrimage to the Rubicon, I used the Sidekick Rubicon Trail Map to locate the area the trail is in.  I decided to see if I could trace the original Jeepers Jamboree route through Wentworth Springs.  Loon Lake shows up on the 1:500,000 scale shaded relief map, so it was fairly easy to progressively zoom in on the Wentworth Trail head (which the Sidekick maps indicates is NW of Loon Lake).  More and more detail became apparent as I zoomed in.  At the Level 3 magnification (1:63,360) Wentworth Springs was labeled.

Another very easy way to find something in TOPO! is to use the Gazetteer Search Function to search for labeled features on the maps.  I entered Wentworth and was presented the options of Wentworth Springs (springs) and Wentworth Springs (campground).  I choose the springs location, picked magnification 5 (1:12,000) and I was immediately zoomed into maximum magnification with the trail head and individual buildings at Wentworth Springs shown in the center of the screen.  TOPO!'s Gazetteer Search Function also easily located famous trail features such as the Big Sluice Box, Little Sluice Box, and Rubicon Springs.

The Rubicon Trail began to show at magnification 3 (it was not labeled "Rubicon Trail" but I was able to recognize it by comparing the trail's location to that shown in the Sidekick map).  I zoomed into magnification 5 to see the most detail.  I was surprised how easy it was to follow the trail all the way to Lake Tahoe by just moving my mouse pointer to the side of the screen I wanted to move to and holding down the left mouse button.  As I followed the Rubicon trail, I was surprised at the number of side trails along the route.  It might be fun to explore these to see where they lead.  As I traced the trail near Buck Island Lake I noticed that 4 separate USGS 7.5 minute maps intersected near the south end of the lake.  I used TOPO!'s Symbol tool to add the red + at the intersection of the maps.  Notice that the intersection of these sheets would have been difficult to detect if some of the USGS maps hadn't shown the purple color update indications.

As I traced the trail, two location maps on the right side of my screen helped keep keep track of where I was at in the overall area.  The lower one showed a mini view of the shaded relief map of the whole area with a small box indicating the area the screen was displaying.  The upper location map showed more detail including the name of the USGS 7.5 minute map I was viewing.  Buck Island Lake is covered by the   Wentworth Springs, Homewood, Loon Lake and Rockbound Valley USGS 7.5 Minute maps.

After an overview of the trail I thought it would be nice to know how far it was from Wentworth Springs to Lake Tahoe and the elevations the trail would negotiate.  I used the Ruler tool to trace the route.  I found I could trace the trail very accurately as I watched the "Pen" lay down a series of very short connected line segments marking the trail.  When I accidentally moved off the trail I just pressed the right mouse button and erased back to where I left the trail.  As I got close to the edge of the screen, TOPO! automatically displayed additional map in the direction I was going.  Once I finished, I right clicked the line and used the options menu to change it from a thin blue to a medium red line.  When I passed the mouse pointer over the line the status bar indicated it was 18.03 miles long.  I right clicked the line again and picked "Build Profile" from the option menu.  I watched in fascination as TOPO! retraced the the entire route as the map moved under the screen window.  When it was done it displayed a profile of the trip with sea level elevation displayed on the vertical axis and distance in miles displayed on the horizontal axis.

The TOPO! profile revealed that driving the Rubicon involves going up 3,253 feet and down 3,003 feet for a net gain of 250 feet at Lake Tahoe.  Moving the mouse pointer on the the profile results in the status bar showing the "terrain distance" and the elevation of that point.  The "terrain distance" includes the additional distance because of changes in elevation.  While the horizontal distance for the route is 18.03 miles, the terrain distance is 18.13 miles.

The two humps in the profile indicate the high mountain elevations crossed to get into and leave Rubicon Springs.  By placing the mouse pointer anywhere in the profile and clicking the left mouse button, the map above is moved to display that point in the profile.  By doing this, I was able to determine that the Little Sluice is in the notch just below the highest point in the first hump, that Rubicon Springs is located in the deep valley between the humps near the mid part at the high point in the valley and that the famed Cadillac Hill is on the steepest part of the trail as it leaves the Rubicon Springs valley climbing the second hump.

Clicking on the plus sign in the lower right corner split the Profile into two parts, the location profile on the right and the detailed section on the left.   The detailed section includes the average grade.  Setting the detailed section to the steepest part of Cadillac Hill revealed that this 1/3 mile section had an average grade of 35%.

Closing the profile window and right clicking the trail trace opened the options window for it.  Choosing the Displayed On option and clicking magnification 1 allowed me to display the trace on the 1:500,000 shaded relief map and see where the trail laid in the bigger picture.  The shaded relief map made the mountain ranges even more obvious.  Even though the Rubicon Trail was traced at   Magnification 5 (1:12,000) it can be displayed on any or all of the magnifications.

TOPO! produced sharp, detailed 8 1/2" x 11" color maps, using the print function with my ink jet printer.   With level 4 magnification the whole trail was covered in three page sized printouts. The Text and Symbol tools added map pins and personal text notes to the printed maps.  Options from the Selection menu added bar scales, north arrow, corner coordinates and a Title (Header).

GPS users will look forward to the GPS plug-in that TOPO! is developing for its TOPO! series.  (The plug-in has been released, see TOPO!GPS USA)The plug-in will enable you to easily transfer information from TOPO! to most consumer GPS receivers (models by Garmin, Trimble, Magellan, and Eagle / Lowrance). You will also be able to download waypoints and routes from these GPS receivers and instantly view them overlaid on the maps in TOPO!. Additional features include the ability to sort, merge, and save sets of waypoints and routes, the ability to quickly annotate the maps with waypoints that show and print their coordinates, and the addition of the UTM coordinate style.  The TOPO! GPS plug-in is compatible with all TOPO!s currently being sold.

TOPO! regions already have substantial GPS features by themselves.  The Latitude and Longitude coordinates for the map point under cursor's location (along with the elevation) is continuously displayed on the right side of the status bar.  Coordinate Display options include: Degrees, Minutes, Seconds; Degrees, Minutes.Minutes; and Degrees.Degrees in either NAD 27 or NAD 83 Datum.  The Coordinate Locator in the View menu allows you to zoom to any coordinate you enter (within the area covered by the TOPO! region).   The exact location of the coordinated is marked by a small yellow dot at the center two cross hairs.

I was amazed at everything TOPO! allowed me to learn about the world famous Rubicon trail from nearly 1,500 miles away.  At a price of $49.00 per region, TOPO! is one of those incredible bargains of modern technology.

The 4X4NOW Bookstore stocks all of the Wildflower TOPO! regions.  See TOPO! for the complete listing including dozens of regions.

For other areas consider DeLorme's Topo USA 2.0 which includes seamless topographic maps of the entire United States on 6 CD-ROMs (but not in the level of detail offered on Wildflowers' TOPO! series).   DeLorme's Topo USA also includes 3D modeling capabilities and is already prepared for use with many popular GPS receivers.  Or for use with your own scanned paper maps or the USGS CD-ROMs consider FUGAWI which is also already prepared for use with many popular GPS receivers.  For paper topographic state by state map books consider DeLorme's Atlas and Gazetteer series.

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