In late-March, I will be in San Jose at the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference. The event has an impressive list of speakers, including some great geo-thinkers from Twitter, Google, SimpleGeo, Yelp, OpenStreetMap, and more. I’ll also be joining this group to talk about how Backpacker magazine has effectively executed several Where 2.0 strategies when others are just talking about them, and at a time when media is at an epidemic downturn.
It’s a three-day event from March 30 to April 1, and the schedule is loaded with interesting topics. Hope to see you there. -kw
Novelist Wallace Stegner boldly called national parks “the best idea we ever had.” And, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns made that the premise of his new PBS film series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Since we’re all sharing ideas, and the fact that we can openly share ideas is a great idea in of itself, I decided to run with a few of my own ideas to inspire people to explore our parks.
In anticipation of Burns’ films, we (myself and a few colleagues at Backpacker magazine) sent some field scouts into Yosemite, Rocky Mountain, Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky National Parks with a lightweight quiver of gadgets (gps units, point-and-shoot cameras, and handheld digi-camcorders). Our scouts collected as much inspiration as they could on a weeklong backpacking route. After they returned, we turkey-stuffed all the multimedia content we could into a short movie with 3D maps. The result is what I call a future-now trail guide that’s ready for readers to view on the device of their choice. Plus: Viewers can get turn-by-turn directions to use on their GPS device or mobile phone for extra navigation help when they go on the trip.
Here they are:
The only thing missing in these videos is you. Now, go hike.
Technology Used: Google Earth Pro, ExpertGPS, Trimble Outdoors, Final Cut Pro, various Garmin units, Trimble Outdoors, Sanyo Xacti, various digital cameras
Google Earth has become a powerful illustration tool for destination videos. We used 3-D flyovers to compliment local video footage and photos. My team worked with freelancer Tim Shisler on this series of cycling destination videos in California. These were posted on Bicycling.com.
MOUNTAIN BIKING In TEMECULA, CA
Road Biking on Highway 1, CA
Road Biking past California Wineries and Vineyards
The Appalachian Trail is an American legacy. The trail runs more than 2,100 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine. I always wanted to equip a thru-hiker with a GPS and have him/her map every step of the trail. The trail is constantly changing due to land rights and re-routes, and any keen observer looking at U.S. Geological Survey topographical maps quickly realizes “the trail don’t go that way anymore.” It took several attempts to find the right hiker. The first guy made it to North Carolina, quit hiking, and stole the GPS I borrowed him. The second guy never understood the whole technology thing. “Dude, You gotta turn it on for it to work.” The third one was trying to break a speed record, so he never focused on the GPS part nor did he like to carry the extra battery weight. Then came Jeff Chow. Jeff had the mindset that I was looking for: easy-going, goal-driven without being masochistic, and a photographer who happened to understand GPS. Jeff took two seasons to hike the AT, and you can see every step of his trip, including hundreds of photos and points of interest on interactive Google Maps at www.backpacker.com/at. We also published his favorite spots in a recent Appalachian Trail article.
P.S. Jeff is now working on a project to map and photograph trails in Yellowstone National Park.
This map was a fun project, and is an ongoing effort. Four years ago, the readers of Backpacker magazine told independent researchers that they wanted more hikes close to home and more maps. Readers said they were doing less trips far from home and more weekend adventures and dayhikes within 100 miles of their doorstep. That feedback spawned the Map Project, a collaborative effort between Backpacker editors, passionate readers, and technology partners to map trails in the United States.
For this map, we created a density map of readers by zipcode. Then we plotted the location of every editor-approved trip and high quality reader hike to show the relationship between our trip coverage where our magazine subscribers live. I think the results show the map project is on mission. Read the full Your Town, Your Trails story.
