Camping North of Leviathan Lake?

[madmattd]

In Caltopo you can make custom layers, one of them is custom DEM shading. "Add" --> "Custom Layers" --> "DEM Shading" is the menu sequence I think. I assume we all know of the standard caltop0 slope angle shading (27-29deg = yellow, and so on). So I like to add layers that pair with that one. Avalanches are rare on slopes 20-27deg, and that angle has some of the best skiing during high danger, so I made a layer to have that show up green. I then look for zones to ski with lots of green and little red. But, thats a little steep to skin up, so I added a layer for 10-20deg to show up blue for looking for optimal uptracks. And being an unsophisticated splitboarder, nothing is worse than flats, so I leave anything less than 10 degrees as unshaded, as that is about the cutoff for getting stuck bad in deep now. Avoiding exits with unshaded areas helps avoid painful exits. I call this layer setup, paired with caltopo's default, Splitboard Shading TM. Its very useful in winter/spring and still good in summer for planning hikes.

Hiker Guy's method for finding camp spots works just like this, just a different target variable. I haven't tried it out, but I may this summer, as I suspect its quite effective particularly with the new LiDAR.

EDIT: You can also use color gradients or solid colors. You can also name and save all of these custom layers to your account for use on all of your maps to avoid re-making them each time. You can use the little GUI/widget to add the layer, or you can edit the text like HikerGuy showed. Awesome tool feature.

Huge thanks to you and HikerGuy! This is an awesome feature! I'm always looking at trails/roads that I might be able to XC ski (read: very NOT steep haha), so I will be setting up my own gradiant scale for that, plus the flat ground variant for camping! CalTopo is such an amazing tool, I've been telling anyone and everyone that hikes about it for at least a decade. To think I only first found and used it because it was the only (at the time) online tool that would print properly scaled 24K/25K/50K maps. I'm constantly learning about new capabilities it has.

[justiner]

To help search for camp sites, I created a custom layer in CalTopo that displays level ground.

Click the Add button in the Map Objects window.
Click on DEM Shading under Custom Layers.
Enter a name for your layer, I used Level Ground.
Paste the following in the rules box: s0-8 FF0000-0000FF
Click the Save button.

This layer should now be listed in the Map Layers window under Your Layers. Check it to display and you should see shading on your map that shows level areas. I use this layer with the satellite base map to look for good camping areas.

achievement_unlocked.jpg (41.47 KiB) Viewed 564 times

[justiner]

Super cool, HikerGuy. Not to derail this thread, but I wish there was a way to save markers to be used for other maps, other than exporting/importing a JSON/GPX file. Like if you could just have ALL the summits with 300' of prominence just marked on your map automatically each time, that would be sweet (AND be able to turn that on/off!).

Boy, anyone got the GPX file for Colorado?! (squints at ListofJohn enthusiasts...)

[Flyingfish]

can i piggyback on this thread? where are my forum fishing friends? leviathan is on my medium-list and i haven't done any casting in the SJs but it's on my radar this year. not asking for your honey hole, but if you have anything to share (PM is also fine) i'd be grateful

I have also never been back there but I plan on bringing a rod when I pack in for those peaks.

[HikerGuy]

Super cool, HikerGuy. Not to derail this thread, but I wish there was a way to save markers to be used for other maps, other than exporting/importing a JSON/GPX file. Like if you could just have ALL the summits with 300' of prominence just marked on your map automatically each time, that would be sweet (AND be able to turn that on/off!).

Boy, anyone got the GPX file for Colorado?! (squints at ListofJohn enthusiasts...)

I can't do it right now, the Second Flatiron is calling my name, but later tonight I can parse out the data from the LoJ Leaflet maps and create a GPX file.

[cottonmountaineering]

can i piggyback on this thread? where are my forum fishing friends? leviathan is on my medium-list and i haven't done any casting in the SJs but it's on my radar this year. not asking for your honey hole, but if you have anything to share (PM is also fine) i'd be grateful

on the map B has fish, leviathan lake doesnt, i love fishing in the SJ's though! a lot of unnamed lakes without trails have great fishing

[k_fergie]

Super cool, HikerGuy. Not to derail this thread, but I wish there was a way to save markers to be used for other maps, other than exporting/importing a JSON/GPX file. Like if you could just have ALL the summits with 300' of prominence just marked on your map automatically each time, that would be sweet (AND be able to turn that on/off!).

Boy, anyone got the GPX file for Colorado?! (squints at ListofJohn enthusiasts...)

I only know how to add them as a GPX/JSON on a per-map basis rather than as a saved layer that could be toggled on/off on any map...that would be awesome to have. This site used to have all of the 14ers, 13ers, named summits as a downloadable, not sure if it still does. I'm pretty sure this is where I got my summit markers GPX file from. I have a dedicated map for all of the 13k+, and it opens veryyyy slowly in caltopo

[HikerGuy]

Boy, anyone got the GPX file for Colorado?! (squints at ListofJohn enthusiasts...)

Here is a quick and dirty GPX file for the LoJ 13ers.

EDIT: Can't attach JSON files, so here's a map with the Lidar 13ers separated by range: https://caltopo.com/m/8EAEJ