My Dad recently gave me about 50+ topographic maps, many with canoe routes on them. Right now most are rolled, with some being folded. What way do you store your maps? Do you have anyway you organize your maps?
I probably have 100 or more topo maps from trips to and through various States across the country. I think I have dang near the entire State of Maryland outside the urban areas.
I guess topo map storage depends on how you use (or don’t use) the maps.
I bring and use topographic maps on trips, so mine are all folded for in-boat convenience. Twice folded, once lengthwise and once width wise, so they are mostly 13 ½ inches by 11 ¼” inches. That size fits nicely inside a large Gaia map case with a window on both sides, so I can fold the maps and load the case in the order most beneficial for subsequent miles.
Some of them are pretty oft used fold tattered, but I can’t imagine using a flat or rolled topo map during a paddling trip. There is probably a way, but it would seem awkward and inefficient at best. I have a sail and don’t need to be holding up a giant sheet of paper while underway.
Not actually true. I have a topo map of the entirety of Assateague Island that is scrolled. Two scrolls, one north end and one south. The island spans two States and inconveniently hits just a corner of several topos, so it was easiest to cut & paste the relevant map sections together into two scrolls, each about 3 feet long by 12 inches wide.
Since the other topos are all folded to that map case size they are stored in a 5-drawer file cabinet with hanging file folders for all 50 States. Some State areas get their own hanging file for ease of information retrieval; the Adirondacks alone takes up two files.
That file cabinet is an artifact of dozens or crosscountry trips in the pre-internet era, with thousands of State and Nat’l handouts, brochures, park maps and etc. I still pull info and publications from those files when planning a trip, and any trip or park info I have printed from the net goes into those files as well, so I don’t have to find and print it again.
Those files are also open to friends planning trips, and it is a joy to sit down with them and pull out the appropriate State file to see what jogs the memory. “Oh, now
that’s a cool place”. All I ask is please return what they borrowed, and bring me copies of freebie handouts and maps for the files if they found a special spot along the way.
One helpful hint if you store folded topos; it pays to fold (or refold) them so that the bottom right corner is visible, otherwise it is just a mystery map. Grabbed at random from the Maine – New York file drawer (lotta M and N or “New” States). I didn’t need to unfold it; Trout Brook Mtn, Maine, Provisional Edition 1988, 46068-B7-TF-024. Ah, Grand Lake Matagamon; just looking at those topos is a rush or memories, I dang near sunk a loaded canoe in that lake.
