Maybe USGS has been giving away topo map downloads since the dawn of ENIAC, but I never heard of it before. Topos are a great aid to getting familiar with a particular area, with emphasis on topology (of course) and also the location of every known well. Learning how to use maps in the Mojave many years ago, I was amazed and delighted by the number of abandoned wells, sometimes found in the oddest places.
Anyway, I always had to pay for mine but then I had something made of paper that I could unfold on the hood of a truck. Very useful. Now since everybody not a penniless desert hermit has one of those ‘mobile device’ gadgets, this is probably better yet. And free, which has a charm of its own.
Yep, they’ve been doing it for years. Since the demise of the printed topo maps, this is about the only way to get them. It used to be that the DMA – Defense Mapping Agency – also had accessible free downloads, but it’s been years since I checked on them. The DMA also used to have a decent freeware GIS app, again, years ago. Back in the hoary old days of ArcView and ArcCAD. I used to do archaeological field work and used all sorts of freebie sources to find data. I still have a tendency to buy old topo maps when I find them, along with section maps. If you can find the old maps you’ll often see that some of the information on them such as old buildings, wells and other features haven’t been transferred to the new maps. That’s often the most valuable part of those old maps, being able to track historic activities. Not to mention if you’re into prospecting, ghost towns, metal detecting……or trying to find old homesteads, those old maps are sometimes worth their weight in gold.
Huh. Well, now I’m sorry I dumped mine so casually. Though mine were all of California desert, and that’s a state in which I hope never again to place a foot. 🙂
It’s probably not nearly as fancy as the .gov site – but I’ve been getting local topo maps from the Libre Map Project.
Yep. I get free map downloads through a free app on my android so I can go hiking in wilderness areas. With built-in GPS in most phones, it’s all you need (and batteries, of course).
Many of the newer maps are also multi-layer, with satellite imagery and various levels of detail. There is also a pdf extension available that can read the embedded map information and give feedback on gps coordinates. For historical interest, they have also scanned a huge portion of the old USGS library, so it is possible to get scans of hand drawn topos from the 1920s.