Topographical maps and hiking maps are coming to Apple Maps on the Mac, iPhone and iPad as of macOS Sequoia and iOS/iPadOS 18, due out this fall. The hiking maps will be at least for U.S. national parks, and will also be available in offline mode because hiking in areas without cell service is the point. Other features coming to Maps include custom walking routes and saved places. [Spatially Adjusted]
Google Maps will be improving its coverage of U.S. national parks: an update later this month to both the Android and iOS versions will add park attractions, trail maps (and directions to the trailhead) and offline park maps. [Jalopnik/TechCrunch]
If you subscribe to Disney+, check out the 10th episode of Disney Insider, which dropped yesterday: its first segment looks at how National Geographic Maps produces its trail maps. The talking is done by National Geographic’s director of cartographic production, David Lambert. I can’t help but be reminded of those old newsreels that talked about map production; this is kind of that, only with really good production values.
Our NatGeo Maps office here in Colorado was featured on Disney+’s Disney Insider show episode 10 that dropped today! Watch 0:47-7:15 to see our boss talking about what we do! 🏞🥾 My 7-second, focused-cartographer 🤓🗺 cameo starts at 2:30! pic.twitter.com/p49B6Z1NfY
— Aly D. Ollivierre, MSc, GISP (@AlyD_VT) December 8, 2021
The Man Behind the Map, the coffee table book of Jim Niehues’s ski resort maps whose crowdfunding campaign I told you about last year, is now available for sale.
The book is nearly 300 pages long, contains more than 200 ski resort maps, and costs $90. That seems high, but printing a full-colour book in small or print-on-demand batches doesn’t come cheap.
Previously: Crowdfunding a Book of James Niehues’s Ski Resort Art; A Video Profile of James Niehues, Ski Resort Map Artist; James Niehues Passes the Torch; James Niehues’s Ski Resort Maps; James Niehues Profile.
We’ve talked about James Niehues before: the legendary artist has painted hundreds of maps of ski resorts and recreational areas since the late 1980s. I was excited to learn that he’s producing a coffee table book that includes all of his maps. It’s being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Pledging $75 or more gets you a copy of the book; other pledge levels get you a high-quality print. Clearly there’s some interest: at the moment the project has raised more than $223,000 from nearly 2,000 backers, 28 times its target of $8,000, with three weeks still to go. [Kottke]
Previously: A Video Profile of James Niehues, Ski Resort Map Artist; James Niehues Passes the Torch; James Niehues’s Ski Resort Maps; James Niehues Profile.
Relying on your smartphone’s maps can be risky in places where cellular service is patchy. That goes for Gatineau Park, where, despite the fact that its southeast corner is surrounded by the city of Gatineau, Quebec (across the river from Ottawa), staff still recommend people use paper maps, CBC News reports. It’s a big park, after all, and not all of it is in the city. But it’s not just about dead zones and dead batteries: out of date trail information and lack of trail difficulty are also problems. None of these problems, mind you, are unfixable (except, you know, dead batteries).
The paper maps in question include general summer and winter maps, along with trail maps for summer and winter activities (all links to PDF files). They’re not total luddites: here’s an interactive map.
Earlier this year Great Big Story did a short video piece about legendary ski resort map artist James Niehues, whom I’ve blogged about here on several previous occasions. Though this 2½-minute video is obviously less in-depth than, say, the Aspen Daily News’s profile of him from last year, I don’t mind another look at him and his work. [Atlas Obscura]
Previously: James Niehues Passes the Torch; James Niehues’s Ski Resort Maps; James Niehues Profile.
The Aspen Daily News has a profile of map artist James Niehues, who’s painted hundreds of different aerial views of ski resorts and recreational areas since the late 1980s. (If you’ve seen a poster of your local ski resort, odds are Niehues was the one who painted it. He sells prints of them, too.) The article names Niehues as heir to an artistic tradition of alpine cartographic art whose practitioners included Hal Shelton and Bill Brown.
Without knowing it, Niehues had become heir to an American artistic dynasty. Shelton was trained as [a] U.S. Geological Survey cartographer and produced a large number of famous trail maps in the 1960s and 1970s. In the ’70s, Shelton passed the torch to Brown, and by 1988, Brown was ready to pass the torch off to someone else.
In the early 2000s, though, it seemed that the storied line of American mountain illustrators would end with Niehues. His maps, many of which had faithfully represented ski trails for decades, began to be replaced by digitally rendered pieces whose production values placed speed above quality.
But there’s a twist: one of the digital illustrators, Rad Smith, ended looking to Niehues for inspiration and mentorship. Demand for painted maps turns out to be more resilient; Niehues, who I believe is in his late sixties and has described himself as semi-retired, may have someone to pass the torch to after all. It’s a fascinating read. [via]
Previously: James Niehues’s Ski Resort Maps; James Niehues Profile.
