Kentucky

For us Michiganders, Kentucky is actually a relatively short drive away. Here is a Kentucky trip planner post for Mammoth Caves National Park and Red River Gorge Geological Area.

Mammoth Cave Waterproof, Tear-Resistant, Topographic Map - This is a very nice National Geographic map showing contours, trails, campsites and more. A must have! Thanks Jacob for sending us this map and so fast! It helped with planning, and will be awesome in the backcountry. :)
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave Maps
Cave Tour Schedule and Booking
Helpful Folks @ Mammoth Cave

If you plan on doing a cave tour you should book early. I waited too long to book a trip and missed out on a tour I wanted to do. We are going to do the Violet City and Domes and Dripstones tours which l am excited for. The park seems to be dog friendly and even has 10 kennels available at the onsite hotel for your dog to wait while you are touring the cave.

(Post Trip Notes: Kennels were very accommodating, there was a little shelter for the pups to go in if they wanted and you are able to padlock the gate while you're gone. The cave tours were amazing! The first tour was 3 miles, 3.5 hours. It was nostalgic and lit by 10 oil lamps our group of 40 carried. Our Guide's Grandfather (Wood) used to be a tour guide here also. We learned about salt/peter mining, geology, historical sites such as the church and hospital and saw multiple cave rooms. It was hard to see but you could really appreciate the darkness and what what the first visitors would have experienced. The second tour was totally different and a nice contrast to the first tour. This tour was 3/4 mile 2 hours. You follow a steep staircase down and travel in sort of an L pattern. The entire thing is lit up and we travelled with a group of 120. It was nice being able to see the rock formations especially at the end where the dripstones were. We even saw bats! )

Campsites are first come first serve, so it's a little hard to pre-plan the exact itinerary. We typically like to do multiple nights in the backcountry so we will try to string a couple sites together once we arrive.

(Post Trip Notes: Even if you don't see bugs flying around, wear long pants and deet up, or visit during the winter months. We didn't realize it was happening at the time, but we got DESTROYED by chiggers and ticks in Mammoth's backcountry. Chigger bites seriously itch for 5+ weeks. :(

It rained a lot the day we arrived and the visitor center folks steered us away from the sites we wanted to stay at due to flooding. They suggested Sal Hollow (Nathan likes to call it Shallow Hal) and Turnhole Bend. Both places looked great in the picture book they showed us and both were water accessible (so they say). Long story short, you cannot get to water from either of these two sites! Personally I would say skip backcountry camping at Mammoth... do some cave tours and get out of there. Head to the Red River Gorge Geological area.)

Red River Gorge Geological Area

(Post Trip Notes: Upon arrival at the Red River Gorge Geological Area, we went to the visitor center and managed to slip in just before closing time. We purchased a glossy topo map of the area for a just a few dollars. If you can stop into the Visitor Center, purchase this map. I was unable to find it online, but the ISBN is 978159351669-7.)

Red River Gorge Topographic Map with Campsites - I highly recommend this map. It comes as a package of 4 maps depicting trails, campsites, mileage, views and much more. I was not able to find campsites anywhere online, so I say it is a must have. It is a nice thick glossy paper, and folds up to a small size. Jacob, Thank you again for sending us your maps!

Red River Gorge Geological Area Map and Mileage

Red River Gorge Geological Area Trail Descriptions

OutrageGIS: Online Maps & Short Description

Parking Permit Purchase Locations

Bourbon Trail Distillery Tours

Helpful Folks @ Gladie Information Center

The Red River Gorge Geological Area looks amazing! I'm very excited to hike, camp, and view the arches in the area. The Red River Gorge Area is also dog friendly. Just remember to pick up any food or waste to keep disease from spreading through the park. We plan to split our stay here into 3 round trips.

• Hike Auxillary Ridge Loop
• Power Loop
• Swift Camp Creek Trail

----------KML/GPS File & Interactive Map Section----------

Here are the routes and waypoints I entered into our GPS. If you want to create your own file to upload to your GPS follow these steps.

1. Get a .jpeg image or screenshot or the map you want to use. If you map is very large, take a look at this post about 1024 pixel images.
2. Add an image overlay in Google Earth. (Steps 1-4 in this link).
3. Trace the trails and add campsites, placemarks, etc. It should look like this.
4. Organize your routes, waypoints, images into a folder under My Places in Google Earth.
5. Export a KML file from Google Earth with Right Click on Folder you made > Save Place As > Save as KML file to a location on your computer.
6. Convert the KML file to a GPX file. I used a free online converter.
7. Connect your GPS and drag the GPX file to your device. On my Garmin Oregon 400, it goes in a folder call GPX. Note: You may need to tinker with the settings on your GPS to get the routes and points to show up. On the Oregon 400 you have to go into Track Manager and set each route to "show on map".

To get the map in Google Maps, I just uploaded it as a KML file. You can download the file by navigating to the map, clicking on the folder icon under the title, and selecting Download KML. You can open the file in Google Earth and make modifications or go right to step 6.

These maps do not depict every trail, campsite etc. I used them for my own trip planning but thought I would share them.

Custom Map

I have been wanting to write a blog about hiking in Michigan. I guess today is the day.  :) Nathan and I are headed out to Nordhouse Dunes this weekend.  We'll be hanging out with friends, breaking in my new boots, giving Chopper some exercise and testing our gear before our trip to Isle Royale.

We learned that you can create a custom map using an image overlay and load it onto a gps!  So cool! This worked really well on our Garmin Oregon GPS.

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To Overlay an Image (picture) onto your GPS:
Directions:  Garmin Custom Maps 
Some notes that will help you along:
1) Click on the instructions tab once on the Garmin Webpage.
2) .kmz files are containers that can hold many .jpg images. Garmin's spec allows each .jpg to be a max of 1024x1024 and there may be as many as 100 of these inside the .kmz file. You are limited to a 1 megapixel image.

(Note: We purchased a very large map for Isle Royale, I scanned the map in with an industrial scanner. I ended up with a enormous jpg. Reducing this jpg to a 1 megapixel image was very grainy and pretty much unusable. Instead I took this image into photoshop and broke it up into 20 images that were 1024x1024.

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Trace Overlay and Only Import Routes and Waypoints:
Since then we have decided that the map is a bit confusing because it is a floating image with a lot of background wording/etc. So now we load the map into google earth, add waypoints and trace the routes that are available on the map, then only load the routes and waypoints that we want into the gps.  You will have to follow all the same instructions as above except you do not need to worry about image size, because you will delete it before loading it to your gps.

You will also have to follow these steps:
1) In google earth create a folder under my places. Put all your waypoints and routes in this folder for organization. This file will be automatically saved as a .kmz file. Once you add all your waypoints and routes go to File > Save Place As > and change the format to .kml (Don't forget to delete the image you orginally used to trace.)
2) Download GPSBabel and convert the .kml file to a .gpx (gpx xml) file.
3) Put the .gpx file on your gps. The folder on our gps is:  Garmin:\GPX
4) Turn on your gps and select "Where to" and you should be able to see your routes and waypoints.

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Put map in Google Maps:
If you are not interested in putting the map on your gps you can put it in google maps following these instructions below:

Note: If you have an iphone you can also send the custom map to your phone and use the google earth app to view the custom map!  (Note: You will need a wi-fi connection to use google earth on your phone to show your current location, however it can still be used as a reference)

If you created the custom map yourself:
1) Export your custom map to your computer: Right click on My Places > Save Place As... > save .kmz file to computer (it saves as a zip file so you will have to extract the contents)

2) Now open maps.google.com and click on My Maps > Import > Navigate to the kmz file.  You should see your map !

3) When you open google earth on your iphone click the little i in the bottom right hand corner, click on My Maps Account > Grant Access >  put a check mark on the map name you want to display, then click done.  It should automatically fly to that location... if not just move to that location and you should see all of your data points.  :)

If somebody else created the map:
- Click on the link to open the map in google maps.  This one is for Nordhouse Dunes: Nordhouse Custom Map
- Click on Save to My Maps
- Follow step 3 above to view map in google earth from your phone!
Here is the link to the map I used, it also has detailed information on Nordhouse: Dunes

Happy Trails!
~Cindy



P.S. If this is too high-tech, my husband says I can do this for you... for a very large fee.