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MODULE 1Assess Inventory and Existing Conditions

illustration of a woman reading a map

Maps of Outdoor Recreation

Identify local outdoor recreation assets using existing base maps and learn to create maps of your community with free or low-cost mapping tools.

Having completed the Outdoor Recreation Activity and Asset Inventory tool, you now have a wider understanding about the many properties, trails, and sites that support outdoor recreation in your community.

This tool will help you find and create maps to visualize the distribution and interconnectedness of these outdoor recreation assets within and around your community. Using a choice of simple and more advanced mapping tools, you will be able to find or create a map (or maps) of your community that allows you to visualize all the outdoor assets that you listed in your inventory.

Completion of this tool will enable you to:

This tool will help your community begin to:

Start with a Basemap of Your Community

A basic map of your community is an essential resource that grounds all recreation mapping efforts. When you unroll a big map of your community on a table, people are naturally inclined to gather around it to start talking about the places they recognize, find meaning, and connect to!

Basemaps provide essential context for your community. They typically show “base” information like roads, town boundaries, topography, and waterbodies. Basemaps may show trails and other recreational assets, but it is unlikely that they will show all the outdoor assets you want to map. It’s good to print a large copy of your basemap and even have a second one in reserve.

Don’t be afraid to mark up your basemap. Get out your pencils, pens, push pins, or sticky dots! Start adding any outdoor assets that need to be shown. Marking up your basemap is a fast, effective, and cheap way to show where recreation happens in your community. If you prefer to create a digital copy of your base map, you can use an online program like Adobe Acrobat to add comments and annotations on top of your base maps.

If you don’t know where to find a basemap of your community, start by checking with your town office to see if they can provide you with one to use and print. Modern maps are made by stacking layers of map information together using specialized software called Geographic Information Systems, or GIS for short. If your town uses GIS, someone might even be able to make you a basemap. Your town may have other maps that can work in a pinch: road maps, tax maps, maps done by your conservation commission or recreational department.

Another option is to check with your Regional Planning Commission (RPC). Learn about the nine RPCs in the state from the New Hampshire Association of Regional Planning Commissions. All RPCs have some GIS capacity and are likely to offer basic maps free-of-charge to dues-paying member communities. RPCs may have additional recreational data that they are able to share and add to a map of your town. Visit the NHARPC website to get contact information for your RPC in order to discuss your project with your regional RPC and to better understand how RPC GIS staff may be able to support your team’s work.

NH GRANIT is a state mapping website that you’ll learn more about below. Their Town Websites and Mapping web page lists all towns in New Hampshire along with links to town websites, the RPC that serves each town, and custom links to the town in GRANITView (see below).

A third option is to create your own basemap using a free internet-based mapping platform. Two suggested options are:

These two applications are described in greater detail below.


United States Geological Survey (USGS) Topo Maps

The USGS develops topographic maps at standard scales. The USGS topographic maps are a great choice for a basemap because they include all the base layers you need and have other info that is relevant to outdoor recreation.

Using the USGS TopoBuilder application, you can center the map extent on the location of your choice. A map will be generated and emailed to you.

For smaller areas, the “25K Recreational Topo” is a good choice. These 1:25,000 scale maps cover an area of about 55 square miles in New Hampshire, and they are designed to highlight recreational layers in the map such as trails, public lands, and water access. Printing to scale will give you a paper map of about 24 x 29 inches.

For broader coverage, the “100k Topo” covers an area of about 1,700 square miles in New Hampshire. There is less detail in this map, but still plenty of context for considering your outdoor recreation resources, especially from a more regional perspective. Printing to scale will give you a paper map of about 46 x 30 inches.

A detailed User Guide is available if you need assistance.

NH GRANITView

NH GRANIT serves as a clearinghouse for mapping applications and GIS datasets for the state. GRANITView is an all-in-one, web-based mapping application managed by NH GRANIT that allows you to view many different layers in an online map.

For the purposes of getting a basemap, GRANITView includes a Print Map option. Choose the size and extent of the map, select the Print option, and get a PDF file generated with the basemap. For a more customized map, you can turn on layers of your choice before printing. A more detailed look at using GRANITView with custom layers to make maps is described in the Make Your Own Maps section.

Find Recreation Maps and Data Layers

Some recreational data may already be shown on your basemap, but chances are there’s still a lot of missing information about the recreational assets in your community. This section introduces you to state, federal, commercial, and regional mapping resources that may contain more detailed information about the outdoor assets around you.

The mapping resources listed here link to maps that will help you better understand where recreation happens in your community. You might not be comfortable working with the digital data layers themselves. However, the maps can guide you by marking where recreational assets take place in your community. With these tools, you can identify these assets on your printed base map.

If you are comfortable using digital mapping tools then many of the resources listed provide links to downloadable GIS datasets that you can add to your own maps (see the Make Your Own Maps section later in this tool).


NH GRANIT

NH GRANIT hosts GRANITView and the New Hampshire Geodata Portal, both of which are good places to start searching for statewide maps and data layers that might be relevant to your project.

In GRANITView, you can toggle on many statewide layers to easily view them in the map. With a custom set of layers turned on, you can print new maps showing specific data of interest.

The New Hampshire Geodata Portal is the source data library that also feeds into GRANITView. From the portal, you can view layer-specific, interactive maps and download different state data layers that you might want to add to your own maps. Data layers can be previewed by following links to map viewers that are listed in the portal.

Some of the most common layers found on the Geodata Portal that are relevant to outdoor recreation are listed below. Data layer names are shown in parentheses:

The Geodata Portal contains a wealth of information. Use the search bar to see what other information you might discover that is relevant to outdoor recreation in your community. Outdoor recreation takes many forms, so you can also use this tool to find data about community assets such as waterbodies where fish stocking happens or cultural attractions like covered bridges and historical signage.


Regional and National Sources

Other sites besides GRANIT where you can find map-based information are listed below by data provider type. When it comes to mapping trails, it is not uncommon to have to visit multiple websites in order to build up an accurate picture for your community.

Federal Data Providers

Several federal data sources that are worth investigating for trails and recreational infrastructure on public lands include:

Commercial and Regional Applications Focused on Trails

The following industry-leading trails websites and mobile applications have both curated and user created content. They are good places to browse for existing trails and trails related information on a map. Keep in mind that if you see a trail in one of these applications, it might not be an official trail so always ensure that trails are publicly accessible and formalized trails before recommending them to your residents or tourists.

Strava and Ride With GPS both offer “global heatmaps” that aggregate all data captured and stored by users of those applications. These maps can be used to discern where trails are located and how frequently those trails are used.

The following websites offer curated, authoritative map-based content about trails (hiking, water, backcountry skiing) and are managed by state and regional organizations:

Gather Your Own Data in the Field

It is important to remember that no map or mapping application is 100% accurate 100% of the time. Sometimes you will need to lace up your hiking boots, or strap on your bike helmet and head outdoors to map places that do not appear on anyone else’s maps!

The following are easy-to-use, smartphone-based apps that you can use to map trails and other points of interest in the field. Use these mapping tools to track your movement and create a “GPX” file that shows where you recreated. This is a great way to capture the location, shape, and conditions of new or unmapped trails.

All three of these applications have free versions that include everything you need for basic data collection in the field. There are other applications that have helpful features (see the list in the previous section).

Those with more advanced GIS capacity may choose to look into ArcGIS Field Maps (a part of the Esri ArcGIS commercial software) or QField (free, open source data collection app for use with QGIS).

Once you’ve gathered your own data, you can use it to approximate the locations of those newly gathered outdoor assets to your base map. If you plan to make your own custom maps, you can export the data from and prepare them to be used in GIS or other mapping software.

Two ladies walking on a trail

Make Your Own Maps

At this point, you have been able to secure a base map of your community and browse numerous recreational mapping data sets, interactive maps, and mapping applications with potentially relevant recreational information. If you’ve been marking up your basemap as you go, you’ve created your own detailed map that shows all, or most, of the outdoor assets that you listed in your inventory.

If you are interested in further developing your mapping skills to work more with the digital data layers that you have been introduced to–and without getting into the complex world of GIS–there are several options available to you.

NH GRANITView

The NH GRANITView mapping application, which was introduced earlier in this tool, has additional functionality that might be especially helpful if you want to make your own maps.

Although the GRANITView application does require some time to learn, it is a powerful resource that can support the development of custom maps of recreational assets. See the detailed User Guide or GRANITView to learn more.

Google My Maps/Google Earth

Google provides two useful mapping applications that can also be used to compile, create, and share data about recreational assets.

Both of these Google mapping applications allow you to export and print maps, but they are much better suited for online and digital exploration of data.

A Final Word About GIS

If you are part of an organization that already has access to GIS software, you are likely aware of the two most popular GIS programs on the market: ArcGIS and ArcGIS Online (commercial) or QGIS (free, open-source).

If you have a local team member with GIS skills–or someone with an interest in committing the time and energy to learning a new, complex software package–then QGIS may be a great option. There are extensive online guides for using QGIS, including the official documentation.

Through this process, you may also have discovered whether or not your municipality or regional RPC might be able to offer some amount of technical assistance for GIS.

Where to Go Next

Whatever pathway(s) you have followed to discover and map the recreational assets in your community, hopefully the end result has given you a new perspective on where outdoor recreation happens across your community. Maybe you have even learned a few things on the way about mapping data and applications!

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