澳门足球博彩官方网址
2023年11月20日
Adventure cartography: High-tech and high-touch
赫尔曼, Purple Lizard maps in early stages of Deep Creek mapping project
Hannah Sickles摄
迈克尔·赫尔曼 discussed adventure cartography during last Wednesday's Joan Crawford Lecture Series presentation in the Performing Arts Center at 澳门足球博彩官方网址.
迈克尔·赫尔曼 understands both the benefits and the limitations of today's high-tech mapping options.
"Now that we've got maps on our phones there's a level of cartographic literacy that didn't exist before,赫尔曼说。, the Purple Lizard Maps founder who visited 澳门足球博彩官方网址 last Wednesday to serve as November's Joan Crawford Lecture Series presenter.
"GPS has us all trained to do the fastest route,赫尔曼继续说。, an adventure cartographer who is in the initial stages of a Deep Creek Lake mapping project with a spring 2024 release date. "Where's the button that says, ‘I want the most scenic route'? How about, ‘I want the most enjoyable route'? We don't get those options.”
赫尔曼 used a PowerPoint slide of a bright-red Pennsylvania covered bridge to illustrate the point.
"There are a lot of beautiful covered bridges in Pennsylvania,” he said. "It turns out this particular one is the longest in Pennsylvania. 你可以开车穿过它, but since they built the main highway 300 yards away, 没人知道它在那里. But if you had our map, it's called out.”
赫尔曼 hopes to achieve some of the same accomplishments with his Deep Creek area map.
"If you look at Casselman State Park, 你在68号州际公路上, 这是一个小光点, 甚至都没有出现,赫尔曼说。. "You're like, ‘Why would I go there?“好吧, if we put a lizard there and we tell you it's really cool, then you might want to pull off and have a sandwich and hang out there. Our maps open up experiences for people.”
赫尔曼 indicated maps should be designed with the people who will be using them in mind.
"You've all picked up highways maps . . . at the Visitors Center,” 赫尔曼 said. "It's a transportation map, so it's all about the interstate.
"The interstate is the most important thing and then maybe county lines and all the things the State Department of Transportation thinks are very important,赫尔曼补充道。, who founded Purple Lizard Maps in 1997.
赫尔曼 said the goal of Purple Lizard is "to spin that [mapping] model to the outdoor recreation audience.”
"We're trying to share with you all the things that an outdoor enthusiast wants to do,赫尔曼说。, whose company most recently completed a two-map series of Shenandoah National Park. "So we're not making a hiking map, we're not making a mountain biking map, we're not making a paddling map – we're putting all of those things in one map.”
赫尔曼 said his overarching cartographic goal is to "take a landscape and unlock it for people who are trying to pull all the recreational assets to the front.”
One of the key facets of his adventure cartography philosophy is immersion within the featured region.
"We want to be in the landscapes that we're mapping,” explained 赫尔曼. "We want to have that experience – what it's like to camp here, 这里发生了什么, 气氛如何?, what's a really busy time of the forest, a quiet part of the forest. It [the time to make their maps] affords us the time to go there in different seasons. So, like being in Deep Creek this time of year, this is very different than being here on the 4th of July.”
This philosophy requires significant "face time” with regional residents.
"We get some of the local information from grounds crews and maintenance workers. We meet with management all the time,赫尔曼说。. "We also talk to the people that grew up there and have worked there their whole life. 他们是很好的资源.”
"They know where the old roads are, they know what's open and what's not,” 赫尔曼 continued.
赫尔曼 noted he had started his day at Potomac-Garrett State Forest "down in Oakland meeting with the foresters.”
"We had gone back and forth over the last few months with emails and screenshots and files,赫尔曼解释道. 我们就说, “你们的地图显示了这一点, we went out there and we didn't see that' – and so this ability to sit down at the same table and discuss it allowed us to get a lot worked out today.
"And then, in our usual fashion, that led to some questions,” 赫尔曼 said. "So, we jumped in the truck and drove around a little bit more in early afternoon before we came here figuring out some campsites that needed to be added to the mix.”
