Field Report

National Geographic Back Roads Explorer
Field Report

Personal Information:
Name: Christine Korhonen
Age: 30
Gender: female
Height: 5'4" (1.6 m)
Weight: 150 lb (68 kg)
E-mail: chris@wormguy.com
Location: Western Montana
Date: October 26, 2004

Backpacking Background:
I'm in Montana where I'm enjoying the summers and becoming re-acquainted with winter. Now that I'm back above the snow line, I'm attempting some winter camping and snowshoeing. I'm a lightweight backpacker mentally, if not always in practice. I've my summer pack weight is around 19 lb (9 kg), but winter backpacking is still new to me, and my winter pack weight hovers around 25 lb (11 kg).

Product Information:
Manufacturer: National Geographic
URL: www.nationalgeographic.com
Item: Back Roads Explorer
MSRP: US $59.95
Year of Maps: 2003
System requirements: 486 DX/66 MHz or higher PC
                                  Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, ME, or XP
                                  16 MB RAM
                                  2x CD-ROM
                                  256 color monitor

Back Roads Explorer Description:
Back Roads Explorer is an electronic set of topographic maps with road data covering the entire United States down to 1:100,000 scale.   There are four levels of maps in the program. Levels 1 & 2 are atlas-style maps while Levels 3 & 4 are USGS maps.

Field Information:
I've tested maps produced by the Back Roads Explorer for Montana and Wyoming.

Installation:
After using the Back Roads Explorer a couple of times, it became obvious that disks used frequently needed to be copied to the hard drive. It was very annoying to change disks every time I wanted to cross the Montana/Wyoming border. It took about an hour for me to copy the three disks that I use most often to my hard drive. After copying the data, opening and moving through the maps was much easier. It seems seamless, just like National Geographic claims.

Use:
I've used the Back Roads Explorer to find routes from my house to Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, and around the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness in Montana.

Finding a Place Using a Name:
The first thing I tried to do with Back Roads Explorer was to see if I could find a place knowing its name but not its location. This can be done using the View --> Find (Gazetteer) option. The database is segregated by state, so I had to know in which state to search before I could start. The Find feature has lists of locations such as creeks or trails, but names of National Parks, clearly visible on the Level 2 maps, aren't in the database.

When I select a location from the search engine's list, a dot is shown on the map. I can create a fixed waypoint, which will remain visible as I zoom between layers, by hitting a button and giving the waypoint a name. Since the search only provides point locations, finding creeks and trails is a little confusing. The search engine contains many trails with the same name, but it is unclear if these are different trails or the same trail at multiple locations. With the creeks, I don't know if the points displayed indicate the source of the creek or just point to the creek in general. It would be nice if the search highlighted the entire creek or trail instead of being limited to point locations.

The Find feature seems to work best for finding towns. Once a town is located, a waypoint can be created at its location. The program can calculate the distance between two points, but it calculates the straight distance. To calculate routes, it's necessary to trace the road between the two towns. This is a bit of a pain since the drawing tool doesn't snap to the roads. The road layers on the Level 2, 3 and 4 maps are slightly different, so a route traced on one is off a bit on the others, especially if I trace a route on the Level 2 maps. Once a route is drawn, an elevation profile is easily created by pressing a button. This is an excellent feature. The profile displays the starting and ending elevations and the elevation change. It gives the total elevation gain and the amount lost on the route in addition to just the net gain. It also shows how much distance was covered on the route. It seems that the distance displayed is the flat distance between two points and not the actual distance distance covered on the road. I will have to test this further.

Finding a Name Using a Place:
I planned a trip to the Cabinet Mountains in Montana and used the Back Roads Explorer to find campgrounds nearby. To do this, I created an anchor point on a road through the mountains then used the Find feature to display campgrounds within 10 miles of the anchor point. The program automatically puts labeled waypoints on the map showing the location of the campgrounds I selected. The waypoints remained visible when I zoomed out to a higher level map, but the text displayed with each waypoint listing its name, latitude, and longitude, takes up quite a bit of space. I haven't been able to figure out how to change these labels yet. The Explorer came up with four campgrounds. Three are the same as are listed on my U.S. Forest Service map, and one is listed on the Forest Service map as a picnic area but not a campground. I have not yet been out there to see which is correct.

Looking for the Back Roads:
Roads displayed on the maps are orange for highways and red for smaller streets. The roads displayed by Explorer as passing through the Cabinet Mountains are the same ones that are on my Forest Service map. Some of the roads are named in Back Roads and just labeled by a number by the Forest Service.

Using Help:
Clicking the Help button brings up a 50 page .pdf file. Since the Help is in .pdf, I can't search for keywords. The Help gives very general instructions, and so far I've found what I needed to know. The Help is easy to use, and I've used it a lot. I've been having a hard time remembering which button controls which feature in the Explorer, and have to look them up in the Help each time. One example is when I need to create anchors and waypoints. To do this I have to use the compass feature, but I have to make sure the compass preferences are correctly assigned. I can't seem to make the connection between compasses and anchors, so I look it up each time.

So Far:
So far I like the Level 4 topo maps the best. They are easy to read, pretty, and a similar resolution to U.S. Forest Service maps (mine is 1:126,720) which I use quite a bit. Finding new cities and creating driving directions are easier to do at on-line directions sites like MapQuest instead of with the Explorer. The Explorer has a lot of information about geographic features stored in its search engine. Unfortunately, the map resolution provided doesn't allow many of these to show up.   The Explorer is fun to play with, and as I play with it more, I hope to find more useful features.

Things I Like:
Topo maps of wilderness are really sharp.
Love the elevation profile.
Fun to play around with.

Would Be Nice:
Central location search, so I'm not restricted to one state.
Finding entire creeks and trails instead of points on them.
Road colors with better contrast against topo lines.

Test Plan:
During the coming months, I will continue to explore the Back Roads' features. I will load some maps into my Pocket PC to determine the usefulness of that feature. I will try to print out some maps to see how they look. I will also try to determine if the distance provided by the Explorer's route finding feature is the actual distance taking elevation change into account or the flat distance between two points. I will primarily be comparing the Explorer's maps to locations in Montana and Wyoming.

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Reviews > Software > Topographic Mapping > National Geographic Back Roads Explorer > Christine Korhonen > Field Report

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