Richard's GPS Trail Maps: GPS Visualizer

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Beyond Richard's GPS Trail Maps – Open Street Map and GPS Visualizer

When I fist started mountain biking one of the first things I noticed was the number of unofficial trails in the Greenbelt not on the NCC maps, or other maps that I was aware of. So I decided to make it a project to map all of the NCC trails in the Greenbelt, including those not on the NCC maps. I never did get beyond the western Greenbelt because there were enough places there to ride without heading to the far east of the city. However I did end up adding some trail systems not part of NCC lands. One commercial map source even requested to use my maps in their products, to which I agreed in exchange for a copy of the map my trail maps were included in.

Now that I have retired from mountain biking I will not be updating these maps anymore (although I intend to expand on the E-Bikeable routes section of this site). I hope people will still find value in the trail descriptions and slide shows that are not available elsewhere.

Fortunately there are now many free options for trail maps of the Greenbelt and other areas. One of the best is the “community driven” Open Street Map project. Despite it’s name it has excellent trail coverage. Their coverage of the Old Quarry Trail System, which I am most familiar with, is excellent.

There are a number of sites where one can download maps based on Open Street Map data. The one I find the most convenient and easiest to use to download maps to load on my Garmin GPS and to install on my computer for use with BaseCamp or MapSource is Open Map Chest. You can download the Open Map Chest Canada map here.

I also discovered another map site, 4Umaps, that looks like it may be interesting, but more complicated. It may be worth examining further.

For those that like to create maps of the tracks of their rides or hikes to share, using the gpx or gdb files, there is an excellent web site, GPS Visualizer, that allows you to do this. It uses a number of different background maps, some based on Open Street Map, and includes topographical and relief maps and satellite imagery. I usually go directly here to create my GPS visualizer maps and then take a screenshot of the results.

Open Map Chest Canada Sample Map Showing Track of a Ride