Links:

 

Hiking Clubs:

http://www.mwrop.org/events.htm - Metropolitan Washington Outings Program of Sierra Club, one of the largest hiking clubs in D.C., part of the national Sierra Club.  Organizes 50K and 100K marathons on the C&O Canal.  I am leading hikes and backpacks for it.

 

http://www.maryland.sierraclub.org/hc/outings.html - Sierra Club, Howard Co., MD.

 

http://www.nvhc.com/sched.html - Northern VA Hiking Club, very similar to MWROP local club.

 

http://www.centerhikingclub.org/schedule.html#Schedule - Center Hiking Club, another hiking club from the D.C. area, with a bit more moderate hikes.  After the hikes the group usually goes to a restaurant in the general area of the hike.

 

http://www.amc-dc.org/ - Appalachian Mtn. Club, D.C. chapter.  A lot of hikes and canoe trips in the Eastern MD.

 

http://www.wanderbirds.org/schedule.htm - Wanderbirds.  A bus club.  Best suited for linear non-loop hikes (bus drops you off at one spot and picks you up at another several mils away).  Cold beer  after the hikes.  Price per hike is > $20. Meet on Sundays.

 

http://www.capitalhikingclub.org/ - Capital Hiking Club.  Another bus club.  Price per hike is > $20.  Meet on Saturdays.

 

http://www.mcomd.org/schedule.html - Mountain Club Of Maryland, a Baltimore-based club.  Most hikes are in the Shenandoah N.P. anyway.  Some are north and east of Baltimore.

 

 http://potomacappalachian.org --> Calendar- Potomac Appalachian Trail Club - not many hikes there, but that's OK.  The club maintains 99.9% of the trails in the Greater DC Area.  It owns a lot of cabins and shelters on the AT, Tuscarora Trail and other trails.  You can rent cabins at very competitive prices, and use shelters for free.  PATC produces the most accurate maps of the trails in the Greater DC Area, and it updates them often.  It makes some of the best guide books as well.

 

http://scwdc.org/calendar.asp - Ski Club of Washington D.C.  Hiking, skiing and other activities.

 

http://www.wvhighlands.org/ --> Outings - WV Highlands Conservancy.   Publishes the best guide-book on Monongahela Nat. Forest and often updates it.  Check the CD-ROM version on this site.

 

http://www.satc-hike.org/hikes.html - Susquehanna Appalachian Trail Club.  Some hikes and backpacks in PA.

 

http://www.neohbackpackingclub.com/tripcalendar.aspx  - Northeast Ohio Backpacking Club.  Most backpacks are in PA.

 

Biking Clubs:

http://www.bikepptc.org/ - Potomac Pedalers Touring Club.  The largest DC biking club.  Very competitive.  Don't be late - they leave 5 minutes before the official ride start.

 

http://ohbike.org/ - Oxon Hill Bicycle and Trail Club.  Friendly club.  Relatively flat roads of the South-Eastern Maryland.  Farms, old stores, Amish Buggies...

 

http://www.bikevirginia.org/ - Bike Virginia.  Not a club, but rather a very pleasant biking event.  Highly recommended.  Also organize Peanut Ride and other rides.

 

http://www.onelesscar.org/ --> What We Do --> Cycle Across Maryland.  Also an event. 

 

Mapping Software:

http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/ or www.topo.com - choose Topo! State Series, as well as MapXchange and Topo! Update.  Topo! 3d is good, too.  Topo! Backroads Explorer is does not have the best scale but covers the whole US and is better than nothing, particularly when doing a trip to a far-away state.

 

http://www.gpstm.com/ - GPS Track Maker.  Allows you to see your GPS Trace in Google Earth.  Allows you to put scanned maps and see your trace on top of them.  Supports lots of GPS models and datums.

 

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/ - Garmin's software.  Poor design, bad scale except a few national parks, high price.  But it's the only way to see maps on the screen of your GPS and it allows you to save traces and upload them back to the GPS.

 

http://www.mapmyride.com/ - free online service for creating and sharing GPS bike traces based on Google Earth.  It has a very good database of user uploaded GPS traces from all over the world.  Good search engine.  Allows to create your own traces by hand.  Has an option of trace "sticking" to the road!  Gives the distance.   Can upload to the *.gpx file and to *.kml (Google Earth) and make elevation profile.  Can make queue sheet.

 

http://www.bikely.com/ - similar to above.  Can upload to the *.gpx file and to *.kml (Google Earth) and make elevation profile.

 

http://www.routeslip.com - yet another similar site.  Makes printable queue sheets, maps and elevation profiles.  Doesn't seem to allow saving their routs to your hard drive.

 

http://www.gpsbabel.org/ - We all know that there is a huge number of incompatible mapping software formats (for each GPS brand plus a number of independent programs).  If one buys a mapping program and somewhere sees a trace in a different format, he is out of luck.  In addition, a lot of mapping programs can only upload waypoints, but not traces.  Finally, a lot of times there is a need to convert waypoints to tracepoints and visa-versa  because of the limitations of the GPS.  This little utility solves ALL these problems.  And it's free.  Huge thanks to Robert Lipe.  Longer description of this utility at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPSBabel

 

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ - a web site that converts the formats left by gpsbabel to the *.gpx or formatted text.  Also, see a good collection of links.

 

 

Map Resources:

http://www.patc.net/store/ - the most up to date printed maps and guide books of MD, VA, WV, PA, DC including AT, Tuscarora Tr.,  Catoctin Tr.  They also sell Appalachian Conservancy maps, Mason Dixon Trail Maps.

 

http://www.ngmapstore.com/ - National Geographic Map Store.  In addition to the Software maps they make the Trail Illustrated Maps.  Trails Illustrated usually have an inconvenient scale of 1:100,000, but for well blazed trails that's all you need.  Besides, often this is the only source of maps with trails on them for a particular area, period.  They make maps for some state and national forests as well, and it's strange they don't advertise it on their web site.  For instance, Trails Illustrated is the only way to get relatively current trails information for most of George Washington and Jefferson Nat. Forest.

 

http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/search.cfm - National Geographic's Topo! MapXchange.  Here people post traces of their hikes and you can download them for free and view them on Topo!  Be aware that traces can be hand drawn and thus incorrect or the trails may no longer exist.  That happened to me on a few occasions, but I still like the site because it gives me an idea of where to go and most of the time the traces are correct.

 

http://localhikes.com/ - great site even though I found the interface a little awkward.  Traces for Topo! software can be downloaded.  But that's not all.  You can see photos from the hikes and hike descriptions!  Warning above about hand-written traces still holds.

 

MD:

http://www.easycart.net/MarylandDepartmentofNaturalResources/  - great maps of MD state Parks with current trails.  Cost very little.

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wmamap.html - location, descriptions and free maps of MD WMAs

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/greenways/

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/outdoors/hiking.html

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/outdooradventures/selfcentral.html

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/all.html

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/tawesgarden.html

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/trailguide/

 

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/trails/trail_maps.shtm - Very good maps in *.pdf format of Montgomery County's Regional Parks.

 

WV:

http://www.wvstateparks.com/recreation/bypark.htm and

http://www.wvstateparks.com/parkmaps.html  - State Parks of WV with great printable *.pdf maps of trails.

 

http://www.fws.gov/canaanvalley/CVNWR-trails.htm - Canaan Valley Nat. Wildlife Refuge map.

 

http://www.wvnet.edu/wvsta/index.html - Allegheny Trail Guide

 

http://www.wvhighlands.org/ - CD guide has maps of Allegheny Tr, Dolly Sods trails and the whole Monongahela N.F.

 

PA:

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/index.aspx

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/index.aspx - select region, select park, download and print a very good free *.pdf map.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/stateforests/index.aspx - all PA is divided into state forests.  Printable maps of the forests from this web site are of very low quality.  But that's OK, because you can call DCNR and order up to 6 maps of forests free with free delivery per call.

 

VA:

http://www.dgif.state.va.us/ - wildlife management areas.  Maps are so-so.

http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/ - state parks.  Masps so-so.

http://www.dof.virginia.gov/stforest/index.shtml - state forests.  Bad maps if exist.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/ - George Washington and Jefferson National Forests - few bad maps, but shows closed areas due to bears and fires.

http://www.nps.gov/shen/ - Shenandoah National Park.

http://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/upload/wilderness_shen_map.jpg - its Wilderness area

http://www.shenandoah.national-park.com/

http://www.fobr.org/ - Bull Run Mtn. Nature Conservancy

http://www.nvrpa.org/ - Virginia Regional Parks - only Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun Co.

http://www.uvrpa.org/naturalchimneys.htm - Natural Chimneys Regional Park

 

USA:

http://www.railstotrails.org/index.html - lots of resources on trails-to-trails.

http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/ - Nature Conservancy saves unique places.

 

Individual Hikers' Pages:

http://www.habitualhiker.com/ - Leonard Adkins.  The best guide books from the best expert in the field.  I used a lot of Leonard's hikes from the guide books in the "50 Hikes in ... " series, featuring MD, VA, and now WV to plan my trips.  I liked to read his hike reviews in the Blue Ridge Outdoors.  His 2 books about wildflowers have the largest pictures of the most common flowers of our area.  They helped me memorize names and characteristics of wild flowers like no other book.  Leonard is a best selling author of the Guide Book to the Caribbeans.

 

http://www.midatlantichikes.com/ - site by Mike Juskelis with detailed descriptions of 100+ different hikes and backpacks that he lead for the Howard Co. Chapter of Sierra Club and WV Highlands Conservancy.  Lots of Topo! traces.

 

http://www.hikingupward.com/maps/nova_map.shtml - Tony Van Vugt's page with lots of traces.  His choice is Garmin Software.  To convert each trace to Topo!, download it to your GPS and upload it to Topo! from the GPS after that.

 

GPS:

http://www.garmin.com/ -the only manufacturer that makes a few good GPS receivers.  Look for the letter x in the model number - it means that the SiRF chip is inside, which in turn means fast locking, much better sensitivity, and no need for external antennas.

 

http://gpsgeek.com/ - antennas and car adapters

 

Shopping:

http://www.gpscity.com/ - used to be good, now slow, overpriced, but still with good selection.  Use it for the information. 

 

http://www.amazon.com - prices can be very competitive.

 

Nowadays, I use www.pricescan.com, www.bottomdollar.com and www.nextag.com  to get an idea about the price of an item I want to buy and then confirm it with www.newegg.com and www.amazon.com. 

 

www.techbargains.com - part of the www.pricegrabber.com - as of 12/23/2007 - one of the best ways to find lowest prices for a high tech item.

 

Work Catalogs

 

Dimitri Tundra.

Last Update: 03/29/2008