Winter 2012 Stats and the Method to My Mapness


WINTER2012: 14.5 miles
SINCE I STARTED: 589 miles

I didn't take many walks this winter, but I did knock out a few more miles in the Sunset, Richmond, Hayes Valley and Bernal Heights.  All were great walks.

Someone asked me a while back how I track my walks on my master maps like the one above. Here's the secret: it's kind of low-fi.  I just use Photoshop to draw my courses in manually. About a year (and several hundred miles) into this project, I discovered a bunch of nifty walk-tracking websites that use gps in your smartphone to keep precise record of your every step. But at the time I didn't actually own a smart phone and once I did, I didn't want to change horses mid-walk, so opted to continue my manual method.

To create a simple walking maps like this one:


I use the website gmap-pedometer.com, which is a very basic course-tracking website but gets the job done as far as I'm concerned. It offers a terrain view so I can tell if my course is headed straight up a mountain or not.  I have been very happy with ceremoniously printing each paper map to hold in my hand as I walk. Of course, like I say, there are a bunch of fancy websites out there that use gps in your phone to track your walks and save the tree by allowing you to just follow the course on your phone.

For fun, here are a few of my master maps from the beginning through today.

September 2009
April 2010
January 2011
March 2012

Comments

  1. Thanks for the details of your mapping process. I have been since June 6th trying to ride every block of every street in SF on my bicycle. I have been using a cheap map and highlighter to track my overall progress - transposing my gps tracks to the paper. It is decidedly unsatisfying, but, I like having one big map that tracks my progress. I will take a look at your methods and noted sites. Thank you for blazing this trail.

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  2. You missed the entire southeast of SF.

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  3. Hi,

    Nice Mapping Process you Share with us.
    I thing Some of the parts/area still remaining...But i know you will complete that area soon...

    ReplyDelete

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