GPS Trail Maps - About

This site is a personal project of Dave Wissenbach (mailto). The site contains GPS travel logs of hiking, cross country skiing, and mountain biking in the area around Boise, Idaho area, my former home, a few trails in the Moab, Utah, area, and an increasing number of trails in the Phoenix, Arizona area, which is now my new home.

If you have hiked off of the beaten path using USGS paper topographic maps, or prepackaged mapping software based on those maps, you may have noticed that the USGS topographics maps are obsolete. New trails come into use, and old trails are rerouted because of development or abandoned because of lack of funds. Logging roads are created and sometimes erased. Forest fires result in areas being closed and trails rerouted. In many cases the maps were incorrect to begin with. Trail guide books may have incomplete directions. Mapmakers working from aerial photographs mistake washed out gullies for roads, or include closed roads on their maps. Property ownership changes result in closures. There is no substitute for local knowledge. The electronic maps published here are my way of conveying that local knowledge to you, the reader of this website.

Disclosure and Disclaimer

I have been a Garmin Associate (employee) since August 2005, so naturally I am inclined to view Garmin GPS devices and software favorably. I speak on this site on my own behalf, as a separate individual. Because I am not authorized to speak for Garmin, and because none of the content of this site has been vetted by Garmin, no information on this site should be interpreted as communication from Garmin International. This site is published entirely on my own time at my own initiative on my own computer at my own expense! To avoid any misunderstandings, I will not respond to any Garmin product-related inquiries or suggestions made to my personal mail. Garmin support can be found on the Garmin International web site.

GPX File Format for Trail Data

The GPS Exchange(gpx) file format used throughout this website is a public file format which allow you to use the data published here with a wide variety of computer mapping programs. A GPS Exchange file stores tracks, routes, and waypoints, descriptions, and links to photos, web page, or any other type of content in human-readable form. A GPS Exchange can link tracks, trackpoints, routes, routepoints, and waypoints to photographics, web pages, or any other type of file.

You can upload trail data in GPS Exchange file format to your GPS receiver and created printed maps from the trail data with my Windows GPS Mapping Software Wissenbach Map3D or with any of the other GPS Exchange compatible programs listed at GPX Resources, such as ExpertGPS and Garmin MapSource . You can also display the maps and their elevation profiles on-line with GPS Visualizer.