I recently finished new, extremely detailed base map for Blue Mountain, and for now done with parks in Westchester County. (Westmoreland (Geoff Connor field-checking), Pound Ridge (Rick Dewitt and Craig Weber), Mountain Lakes (Bob Burg), and Blue Mountain.
I am going to start a new project in next couple of days and taking a straw poll for potential new map.
Here is a list of areas, I would like to turn my attention to, some of it advised by Bernie Breton and Eric Weyman (areas are not in any particular order):
Skyland Association (Northern NJ, South of Sheppard Pond), site of two last Fools Day ROGAINEs by Alan Young.
Abram S. Hewlett State Forest -SE section, (Northern NJ)
Allamuchy North (NJ)
Mahlon Dickerson Reservation (NJ)
Stewart State Forest (NY, south of route 84)
Farny State Park (Northern NJ)
Sebago Beach (Harriman SP, NY) - update
I asked local clubs members for advice and their response was not definitive, so I decided to go for a broader audience.
Would you be so kind and rate those areas as you see fit for future events, and I will tally this public opinion into a list of future projects - shot term and long term. New suggestions are welcome as well.
Thank you in advance.
I don't have a particular opinion, DarthBalter, but AWESOME!! Thanks for all the new stuff.
Besides Sebago the only one that sounds familiar to me is Allamuchy. It's been decades since I was there but IIRC it was the place that PG suggested must be an ancient native american word meaning something like "all the thorns of the world gathered in one place". Perhaps that has improved in the intervening years?
That was Allamuchy "South", which has mostly gotten worse, except for a strip along the northern edge/ Rt 80.
"North" has completely different vegetation.
The main question is parking.
The areas I've been most interested in over the past few years have been Allamuchy, Stewart and, and Hewitt SF.
The only time I went to Allamuchy was when I was pretty new at this, and I got pretty lost, so I'd love another shot at it, but the truth is that it's pretty overrun with barberry. I wouldn't waste the effort on Sebago, there are already plenty of maps in Harriman and it would be better to spread things out geographically.
(Oh, just read Eric's note, maybe Allamuchy would bee a good choice.)
DarthBalter: Is there any chance of seeing one of your basemaps? I'm interested in what you do.
The ridge along the AT to the west of Greenwood Lake is
awesome rocky terrain. If the part of Abram S Hewitt you're thinking of mapping is anything like that, or even better, a less steep version of that, it would be good stuff.
I guess many of those photos are from this map from 2015
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/10244809479871...
Allamuchy North surrounds a scout reservation, which presumably could be used for parking and other facilities.
Not sure, but there might also be a scout camp adjacent to
Farny.
For a closer-to-the-people location, I would add
Watchung Reservation, in Union County, to the list.
I remember getting thorns out my legs for several weeks after the one time I was at Allamuchy though, as Eric says, that was south.
The only other one I am familiar with is Sebago and I have wondered why there aren't events there anymore??? For a time it was heavily used and pretty of parking. Have the woods gotten bad?
Hewitt intrigued me for 30+ years, but when I finally got out on it (on Jagge's map, thank you), I found most of the high ground very unpleasant (Mtn Laurel), and borderline dangerous especially for Brown/Green people, which is the driving market force, and not worth the very difficult fieldwork to make it usable for Red/Blue courses.
However most of the SE slope was very good, as well as the relatively flat strip at the bottom, which is accessible from a public parking area, big enough for local events.
Is this where "Pet Sematary" was filmed?
I defer to Eric's off-trail experience.
Another area to consider is Fahnestock Park. There are large sections both north and south of Route 301. A southside map could connect the Taconic Outdoor Center on the West with Bushy Ridge and the Boy Scout Clear Lake property The section north of Rt 301 is very extensive.
OK, all tallied and the next 3 maps will be:
(no drum-roll)
Stewart SP, EMPO and HVO may benefit from it. Potential Bike-O is in mind.
Allamuchy North, most likely DVOA map, more active club.
Sebago Lake update (HVO map). I scouted the area and checked old map for georeferencing - it would not work, no rubber-sheeting will ever fix it. Southern part has absolutely gorgeous woods. With some good will, park shell let us use it, just right people need to talk to them. The whole area is as good as Surebridge for orienteering.
DarthBalter: Great list!
General question, is most of the WOC93 terrain still top notch?
Hi Greg, as a HVO semi active in mapping North NJ (Did Sept/Oct ... Trail revisions with Paul Bennett on Wanaque Ridge new HVO map (Nov 25)), I was glad to see your post.
I will rate List as follows and suggest a New area also for reasons I will explain below: (I rate as N = North as 1st, E +as a 2nd choice, S =South as Not excited
Rate where ... comments
E Skyland Association (Northern NJ, South of Sheppard Pond),
E Abram S. Hewlett State Forest -SE section, (Northern NJ)
S Allamuchy North (NJ) - Note; too much undergrowth in my memory
N - Mahlon Dickerson Reservation (NJ) - Comm. I ... have hiked there many time, good parking lots, lots of streams and erratic boulders, good terrain
TBD- Stewart State Forest (NY, south of route 84)
N!! - Farny State Park (Northern NJ)
E Sebago Beach (Harriman SP, NY) - update
2 additional comments:
On potential Mahlon Dickerson , I hiked there to check it out 10 years ago (many times), and its got good trail network and good Orienteering terrain.
On potential Farney State Park, I have hiked in the Scout reservations nearby and its got great forested tracks worth evaluation. I have ALSO been contacted by a Scout leader representative from Camp Lewis management (BSA camp), in December to evaluate a Perm O course for local Scouts. I have only at this point been approached to evaluate & design and supervise potentially a Perm O course (funding unclear). The original offer email stated there parking lot, buildings, and facilities might be used as event base of operations for HVO/Club future TBD O meet hikes into Farney St Park. This of course is very preliminary, and no promises made or committed as I am better as a O map developer and would need a experience mapper to assist me, for this long term effort. Lets just say that HVO BOD's input would have to be procured for the bigger map;; and the smaller Scout property, perm O small scale map investigation is in my in box (ref Quail Hill 1999 O map made by me and Theo Zaharia, private map that morphed into todays DVOA/Bob Burg grand Usof quality map of Quail Hill reservation (Mar 25 next use). Lewis base map is being requested, long story. contact me @ email for more detail
ref Boy Scouts of America Camp Lewis
39 Upper Hibernia Rd Rockaway NJ 07866
@Nev-Monster: WOC 93 maps are still usable, most changes are vegetation related, blueberry, generally speaking, is taller, but some of the mountain laurel is getting thinner, more runnable. With careful course setting no updates are needed after 25 years. Hiking trails are always changing, ever so slightly, but they are not major features, unless you are designing Yellow or White courses.
@brucharski7: Thank you, Bob for nice input, I will definitely take it into consideration for my future mapping projects.
OK Greg, I forgot to add that while Paul Bennett did a Superman great job on the New wanaque ridge map (and map is very usable, you know it as the old HVO Ramapo Lake SP map, SW section), it actually had no vegetation updates. So it might be a future project for someone. While I updated the trails, I kept running into a few dense pockets of fight that are not mapped correctly; my CS solution, of course, was to merely not- make R/G route choices thru the nastiest fight blobs. that and there are 33% more rock than is shown on the map, due to importation of large 1 meter un-mapped rocks and open rock face (common) by rogue chipmunks and biker dude squirrels,
@DarthBalter: With LiDAR available for all of the WOC93 terrain, it is probably possible to autogenerate a significantly improved vegetation mapping.
With one or two iterations of feedback from a surveyor (using a small set of typical sample plots for the various levels of green) you can in fact get quite useful results.
I wandered into this thread as I was looking for info regarding Allamuchy. Went running there Monday and was taken with how much fun it could be as an omap! So I was just wondering if any more work has been done on Allamuchy. If its helpful I know that alan created an adventure racing map of the park in 2015 which has all the contour detail in it and most of the trails (obviously not o quality but perhaps useful?). Also anyone got any ideas on how I could get my hands on the old maps?
J.
I may have a copy of the old map that I could scan for you. It was used for A-meets back in the 1980s, but the main thing that people associate that name with is barberry.
Allamuchy north of the highway may be more acceptable.
USGS's National Map Download has LiDAR tiles of all of Allamuchy, Mahlon Dickerson and probably the rest of New Jersey too downloadable as .laz files which are easily importable in to OCAD 12 and probably OCAD 2018 too with the contour interval of your choosing.
OCAD 12 can also turn out Kartapallautin-like maps at the same time.
Yes, as noted on my 12-12-17 post above, Allamuchy, north of 80, is quite different, probably due to a different forest management history.
This is an interesting and enjoyable terrain, also very large.
I've had numerous excursions there within the last 2 years.
Kp-like maps should work very well.
Yeah, I set Allamuchy to work last night after Whittingham.
Here's a first version:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B64jd3d3gSP7M2li...
anyone knows if southern ontario have lidar available ( at cost or no cost ) ? thx
the link above Greg have it , looks great terrain
Thanks Greg super helpful. Funnily enough thats exactly where I was running on Monday and I agree that this is super interesting terrain with lots of orienteering/adfventure racing potential. I note JJs comment about the barberry but there was very little ground cover in the area that Greg mapped above.
By the way if anyone fancies a run on Greg's first version map or just an interesting trail run. Park in the Shoprite of Byram car park and take the Jefferson Glen Bike path which starts across the road, go down Hi Glen Drive – follow the light blue highlands trail blazes on the telegraph pole and street signs to the start. From there you can take the high road (Highlands trail – that’s the one I took – much hillier and more of a work out) or the low road (Jefferson-Glen Bike Path – that’s the one I took back – stay to the right as there is a false trail back up on the Highlands trail about half). If you take the bike trail its 1.4 miles and pops you out close to here
https://goo.gl/maps/Z1oecEsJNks
https://www.byramtwp.org/useruploads/files/Byram%2...
https://www.byramtwp.org/index.php/parks_rec/trail...
Nick, I just sent you an e-mail.
Oh and I should say that you could also start from the Salt Gastro Pub which has amazing food and beer and take the Cat Swamp Connector trail which is marked on the bryam trail map linked above.
Allamuchy "North" is much larger than shown on the linked Google Maps, covering much more to the north and west surrounding the scout camp.
Bill Cusworth provided his Making O maps from Lidar presentation for the OUSA website. Download it in chunks (website couldn't handle extra large files), or contact him for the full PDF.
http://orienteeringusa.org/mappers/resources/softw...
Despite the barberry (and my terrible showing), I really enjoyed Allamuchy the one time I was there. Adjacent terrain with similarities but more open sounds wonderful indeed.
Allamuchy was great (barberry, not so much)! Pretty sure we ran in Allamuchy "North" while recce'ing areas for WOC1993, but that visit might just have been some anti-limey disinformation.
Graeme, I was definitely there for during the WOC '93 search, and if you say we were there together, I'll believe you.
I think North has gotten even nicer since then, but South much worse.
This discussion thread is closed.