Back in the early 1980’s I purchased a Silva Map Measuring tool. It had a very small gear wheel that you would roll along the trail on a map. As the wheel turned it was geared to another wheel that was calibrated to different map scales, which would tell the distance between two points. Using this I would get the data for the trail distance and not the elevation at “nodes” at the ends of the measured legs.

To compile these, I wrote a simple basic program that computed the difference in elevation and the distance between the ends of each measured leg along the the cumulative distance and elevation gain and loss from the start. This was a tedious process but gave useful results.

In the 1990’s you could buy Topo Maps on CD and the associated software allowed you to draw tracks and routes and make a printable map. These also provided means to transfer the data to GPS handsets which could be used in the field. I modified my program to use these data files to give me similar to those of my earlier manual measurements on physical topographic maps. While it was easy to create a map using the software, it was necessary to manually add the elevation to the data points created by the programs.

I had purchased topo maps on CD’s from several different publishers, but eventually settled MapTech Terrain Navigator software. It eventually had a tie in with Google Earth so that any track or route you made on topo map could then be displayed on Google Earth. This worked well for many years until the current versions of Google Earth could no longer be recognized by the MapTech program.

I tried many online versions of mapping programs with varying degrees of success. These included Acme Mapper 2.0, Hillmap.com, and Caltopo. Each had their advantages but several years ago Google changed their conditions for using their satellite maps and the free online mappers could not provide the same service. Caltopo began a subscription service which includes the use of Google Satellite Maps as well as several different types of topographic maps. In the end I got a subscription and am well pleased with the service.

If you use Caltopo, you can quickly switch the map on the screen with the click of a mouse. For hiking in the high country, satellite maps are very useful because you can often see the trail clearly and can draw your route directly on the satellite map and then switch it to a topo view. One thing rapidly becomes apparent when you follow a trail on the satellite map – it bears little resemblance to the trail that is shown on the topo maps. The satellite maps are not useful when the trail is through heavilly forested terrain, so you have to rely on those given on the topo maps.

For several years I used Caltopo to create a track or route following the trail as closely as possible. I export that track/route as either a gpx or Google kml file. I then use the freeware POIConverter program to convert the gpx/kml file to an “RXF” file that the Maptech Terrain Navigator uses. I can then print out the tracks/routes using the program. These are the “maps” that I used in my photo albums. I also use these “RXF” files with my program to calculate distances and elevation gains/losses.

Recently (2026), Caltopo provided elevations for data points exported for the routes and waypoints of a map created by the online software. I realized that I could adapt my program to process the data from the exported file rather than go through the process of converting it to the Maptech RXF format. This has made it much easier to create the distance and elevation gain/loss output files for a trip.

After creating a route on Caltopo, I export it as a GPX format. Unfortunately, none of the waypoints of the route are identified. Such a route may have hundreds of waypoints so I will choose notable points along the route between which distances and elevation changes are recorded. These would be things like creek crossings or passes, etc. I create waypoints for these, which are exported along with the route data. I modified my BASIC program to incorporate these into the data.

If I have used Caltopo to create a map for a trip, I will provide a link to the online Caltopo map. Unfortunately, if you do not have a subscription, you will not be able to render the route in the Satellite map but are limited a less precise alternative (Image Layer). You can, however, export the route to a Google “kml” file which can be displayed in Google Earth.

-Cascade Bill Mooseker