From the category archives:

Web Sites and Apps

Map of L.A. in 1880

July 12, 2010

It is kind of insane to think about just how fast L.A. grew from a sleepy village surrounded by orchards into a world-class megalopolis, but L.A. is so good at paving over its history that it’s tough to get a good perspective on it. Recently, the excellent L.A. History tweeted out this link to an [...]

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Google Earth 5.2 Gets More GPS-Friendly

June 21, 2010

While I was running around at E3, Google released an update to their Google Earth software that made it an even more attractive program for hikers. In earlier versions of Earth, GPS connectivity was limited to those who paid a hefty annual fee to enable “advanced features.” Over time, Google has opened up more and [...]

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Updated Station Fire Closure Map

June 4, 2010

As was noted earlier, some of the original areas of the Station Fire Burn Area have been re-opened to the public. Unfortunately, the accompanying Forest Service map was low-resolution, so it wasn’t all that helpful to hikers looking to revisit their favorite peaks. Thankfully, John Tangenberg of the Sierra Club-Angeles Chapter’s Geographical Information Systems Committee [...]

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Review: Trimble AllSport GPS for iPhone

January 29, 2010

When I was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I met some representatives from Trimble Outdoors, who were kind enough to let me in on a review copy of their iPhone App, AllSport GPS. While I think it has a few shortcomings for hikers, its features really shine as a fitness app, which [...]

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Review: EveryTrail for iPhone

January 5, 2010

While I was back on the East Coast, I had the opportunity to test out the beta for EveryTrail’s new iPhone App (which has since gone live). For those of you who don’t know, EveryTrail is a free user-built database for GPS-enabled outdoor activities of every kind. Users can upload their GPS tracks and photos [...]

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Review: AccuTerra for iPhone

December 15, 2009

Earlier this year, I went up to Big Bear for some snowshoeing. I went on the Pine Knot Trail, and while it was fun, I definitely got lost more than I like to when I’m in the middle of the woods – both due to the snow covering most of the trail junctions and a [...]

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Online National Parks Holiday Cards

December 9, 2009

If you usually send out holiday cards, but are concerned about the carbon footprint of sending hundreds of letters through the mail — or are just too lazy this year — you’ll be happy to know the National Parks Conservation Association has you covered. The nonprofit organization is offering ten images of National Parks with [...]

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Station Fire Image from Space

November 25, 2009

If you were wondering exactly which areas within the Station Fire burn area were burned and which were spared, you can thank NASA for giving us some information. On November 19th, an unmanned Predator B drone flew over the Station Fire burn area and took detailed images with an Autonomous Modular Scanner. Unfortunately, the picture’s [...]

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Smartphone Botany

October 23, 2009

So I know I just wrote a story about someone who got attacked by a bear while she was checking something on her iPhone, but if you’re careful about when and where you use your smartphone on the trail, you can actually help out with an important project. Invasive plants have long been a problem [...]

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Google Trail View?

October 22, 2009

Google, our future lovable life overlords, are extending their virtual reality-ish maps service Street View off of the road and onto the trail … and into theme parks, too. The street view section of Google Maps currently allows users to get an actual view of their chosen location on almost every street in the United [...]

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