The Coronado National Forest lists 60 trails in the Chiricahua Mountains suitable for day hiking. Enough to keep anyone busy for quite awhile. But access to information about trails, difficulty, locations, and conditions is always changing.
The last commercial compilation of hiking trails in the Chiricahua Mountains was published in the late 1970's and used copies are still available. Entitled "Hiking Trails and Wilderness Routes Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona" this publication was considered the authoritative guide to the Chiricahua Mountains by many. But times change and access to information also changes. The amount of web based information available has exploded and information on outdoor activities was not lost in the change.
In addition to trail information provided by the Coronado National Forest, users have also contributed information. The Portal Rodeo Hiking Club is out weekly exploring the back country in the Chiricahua Mountains and maps of the hikes are published here, here, here, here, and here, and of course on this blog. All of these maps are published through Google Maps and index independently in a Google search. Bootheel Maps is another source of updated trail maps available for hikers. These trails are all personally inspected, have additional information such as an annotated gazetteer, and may be printed out for field work.
The newest place to find Portal Rodeo Hiking Club maps is at Wikiloc. Wikiloc is a layer in Google Earth found under Galleries (in the tool bar on the left). This layer displays uploaded hiking maps of your favorite trails contributed by others. This tool allows interested visitors access to information about hiking trails, in this case those hikes from the Portal Rodeo Hiking Club. These maps are linked to the original Google Maps of each hike where additional photographs, contributed my hikers, may be viewed. Or alternatively, the "photos" layer may be activated to view other Google Earth photographic submissions.
Below is a sample map of the trail up Silver Peak in Cave Creek Canyon from Wikiloc. To view additional hiking maps, open Google Earth and click on the Wikiloc layer under the Galleries tab. As time permits additional maps will be included in Wikiloc.
Addendum: A list of maps uploaded to Wikiloc may be found here.
Click photograph to view large formatted image
I have the book Hiking Trails and Wilderness Routes. It sure is nice that these maps are available for visitors to this area. So much to see in this area.
ReplyDeleteJust another way for visitors to find useful information about the area. I have heard discussions about trying to update and republish the book, but the amount of material easily available online ensures anyone with a computer connection has access.
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