BRT Insights - WW Kayaking & Hiking

Paddleboaters - please help by filling out the online survey.

Navarro River - Boating Recreation Survey. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey. Survey data will be tabulated on Sept 15, 2012. The Anderson Valley Land Trust in cooperation with the National Park Service Rivers Trails and Conservation Assistance Program is evaluating the Navarro River as a potential non-motorized boating water trail. This survey about boating on the Navarro will assist in that evaluation. The Navarro River is located in southern Mendocino County about 2 hours north of San Francisco. The primary focus of the study is between Hendy Woods State Park in the Anderson Valley downstream to Navarro Beach in the Navarro River Redwoods State Park . Please forward this link to others in the non-motorized boating community who might be interested to participate in this survey.

Photo credit: Barbara Hartford

Maps of Navarro River Valley.

• Acme Mapper online map user instructions. Click and drag to reposition this interactive map.
• The tool on the left zooms in and out. Point on the red markers to see the names.
• Map=roads. Satellite=satellite map. Terrain=3D shaded topo map. Topo=topographic map.
• Full-Screen online interactive map - Navarro River Canyon.

Street View of Hwy 1 Bridge over the Navarro River.

View Larger Map
See instructions for using Street View.

On behalf of the Anderson Valley Land Trust . . . THANK YOU!!!!

Patrick T. Miller, AVLT Board Member


For more information:
• Navarro River Whitewater Paddleboating Guide
• Navarro River Water Trail blog - Anderson Valley Land Trust
• Navarro River Water Trail Assessment 2011, Anderson Valley Community Services District


Tags: kayaking, float tubing, river map, Mendocino County.
Tags: Navarro River, California, paddle boating, paddlesports, kayaking, canoeing, river.

Labels: trip

Plan your trip to Death Valley or take a virtual tour from the comfort of home.

Summer weather at Death Valley National Park is incredibly hot, so its a good time to take a virtual tour of the park, and possibly to plan a trip to the park to see the wildflowers next spring.

Maps of Landmarks in Death Valley National Park.

• Map book: California Maps - Atlas & Gazetteer by Delorme, 2008.
• PDF map: DVNP Map pdf.

• Acme Mapper online map user instructions. Click and drag to reposition this interactive map.
• The tool on the left zooms in and out. Point on the red markers to see the names.
• Map=roads. Satellite=satellite map. Terrain=3D shaded topo map. Topo=topographic map.
• Full-Screen online interactive map - Death Valley National Park.

Ubehebe Crater (A) Scotty's Castle (B) Titus Canyon Road (C) Mosaic Canyon Road (D) Sand Dunes (E) Hell's Gate (F)

Salt Creek Road (G) Mustard Canyon Drive (H) Harmony Borax Works (I) Furnace Creek Campground (J) Furnace Creek Visitor Center (K) Borax Museum (L)

Zabriskie Point (M) Dantes View Road (N) Golden Canyon trailhead (O) Artists Drive (P) Natural Bridge Road (Q) Badwater (R)

Links for Virtual Tour and Trip Planning Resources

Street Views of Death Valley provide dynamic, interactive, 360 degree panoramas showing the scenery along the main roads in the park. This includes excellent views of some scenic drives (e.g. Artists Drive, Mustard Canyon Drive). For many other locations Street View only shows the drive to get to the site (Golden Canyon Trailhead, Natural Bridge Trailhead, etc.).

Acme Mapper is the finest online interactive mapping system! It provides Google street maps, Google satellite maps, Google terrain maps and USGS topographic maps in a convenient user-friendly interface. It is definitely worth a little time to learn how to use Acme Mapper.

BRT Photos are photos from my camping trip to Death Valley in spring 2005 to see the seasonal wildflowers.

Img Search searches for photos in the Google Images database. Beware that this system misclassifies lots of pictures, so don't assume that every photo there is from the location that you are searching.

3D and Panoramic Photos & Videos (see below) provide stunning views of Death Valley using various imaging technologies.

Southern Death Valley - going south from Furnace Creek

I have clustered these attractions geographically to help plan locations that you may want to visit on various daytrips as you explore the park. We made our base camp at Furnace Creek Campground when we visited the park in spring 2005.

Street View Furnace Creek Campground (J) Furnace Creek Visitor Center (K) Borax Museum, Furnace Creek (L)

Acme Mapper N 36.466266 W 116.86622 (J) N 36.460725 W 116.865455 (K) N 36.457013 W 116.865154 (L)

BRT photos Campground. Borax Museum.

Img Search Search Search Search

Zabriskie Point and Dantes View are along roads that run through the south-east part of the park.

Street View Zabriskie Point (M) Dantes View Road (N)

Acme Mapper N 36.421029 W 116.808823 (M) N 36.220719 W 116.72668 (N)

BRT photos

Img Search Search Search

These landmarks are all on the Badwater Road, the main road through the southern end of the park. Hiking the Golden Canyon trail was great.

Street View Golden Canyon Trailhead (O) Artists Drive (P) Natural Bridge Trailhead (Q) Badwater (R)

Acme Mapper N 36.420518 W 116.847634 (O) N 36.329894 W 116.830003 (P) N 36.27406 W 116.792877 (Q) N 36.229698 W 116.767064 (R)

BRT photos Golden Canyon. Badwater 1 , 2 .

Img Search Search Search Search Search

Central and Northern Death Valley - going north from Furnace Creek

These attractions are along Hwy 190 north of Furnace Creek.

Street View Harmony Borax Works (I) Mustard Canyon Drive (H) Salt Creek Trailhead (G)

Acme Mapper N 36.48024 W 116.872633 (I) N 36.48837 W 116.878638 (H) N 36.604646 W 116.98042 (G)

BRT photos Mustard Canyon. Salt Creek.

Img Search Search Search Search

These attractions are on Hwy 190 and Daylight Pass Road that run south-west to north-east through the central part of the park. The Mosaic Canyon trail is a great hike.

Street View Hell's Gate Overlook (F) Sand Dunes (E) Mosaic Canyon Trailhead (D)

Acme Mapper N 36.710969 W 116.985566 (F) N 36.605514 W 117.116496 (E) N 36.604508 W 117.148466 (D)

BRT photos Hell's Gate. Sand Dunes 1 , 2 . Mosaic Canyon.

Img Search Search Search Search

These are accessed via Scotty's Castle Road, the main road through the northern part of the park.

Street View Titus Canyon Trailhead (C) Scotty's Castle (B) Ubehebe Crater (A)

Acme Mapper N 36.794777 W 117.189477 (C) N 37.031493 W 117.340839 (B) N 37.010954 W 117.454859 (A)

BRT photos Ubehebe Crater.

Img Search Search Search Search

The wildflowers in springtime are one of the greatest attractions that bring people to visit the park.

Street View

Acme Mapper

BRT photos Death Valley wildflowers.

Img Search Search

3D and Panoramic Photos & Videos from Death Valley National Park

• Death Valley National Park - 3dparks.wr.usgs.gov 3D anaglyphs & panoramic photography.
• Scotty's Castle Virtual Tour - Death Valley National Park video tour.
• Death Valley National Park - americansouthwest.net - See QTVR Panoramas at bottom of page.


More about:
• Use Street View for virtual tours and trip planning for road trips and outdoor activities.
• Hiking, Biking & Camping Trip Reports & Photos - BRT Insights.
• Hiking Trails in California - Davis Wiki.


Tags: Google Street View, Google Maps, Death Valley National Park, California, southern California, socal.
Tags: hiking, trailheads, virtual tour.

Labels: hiking, map, website

Melon chip jerky can be made in a food dehydrator to produce an excellent hiking snack or TV snack food.

Dried melon chips concentrate the flavors and sugars to convert the melon into an interesting and different type of food. Dried watermelon sounds like a contradiction, but it is surprisingly good. Of course I will always eat some melon as a fresh, cold, wet, and sometimes messy food. On the other hand, I don't see too many people bringing fresh watermelon on hikng trips. Dried watermelon and cantaloupe chips will be frequently packed items in my hiking lunches. Dried melon slices also provide healthy low fat, low salt snack foods that will fit into many diet plans. These neat and tidy finger foods are also convenient for use as TV snacks, party appetizers and hors d'oeuvres.

Eating more watermelon is part of a colorful healthy diet

For many years I avoided watermelon thinking it was just a sugary junk food. Recent publicity on eating a colorful diet for better health stimulated me to investigate the nutritional value of watermelon.

What Color is Your Food? Taste a rainbow of fruits and vegetables for better health - North Dakota State University The site describes healthy reasons to eat a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables: Red, Orange/yellow, Green, Blue/purple, and White fruits and vegetables.

What Color Is Your Diet? Review - webmd.com "The idea is that colors don't just make food pretty. They are there because specific nutrients have specific colors. Each color group represents a family of nutritional compounds and the deeper, the more nutritious. ... Experts agree that a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables should be part of everyone's diet. Produce are naturally low fat, high in fiber, and the natural chemicals that are responsible for the brilliant colors are disease-fighting nutrients that can protect against chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and more"

Watermelon Nutrition Facts and Analysis - nutritiondata.self.com "The good: This food is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Potassium, and a very good source of Vitamin A and Vitamin C. The bad: A large portion of the calories in this food come from sugars."

Watermelon is a Nutritional Powerhouse - naturalnews.com "it is an excellent source of Vitamin C, which a major antioxidant. It has a high beta carotene concentration, thus offering a fair amount of vitamin A as well. ... A surprise nutrient is vitamin B, especially B1 (thiamine) and B6 (pyridoxine). ... The meat or pulp of watermelons is usually pink or red. Those colors indicate the highest content of lycopene, an antioxidant ... Then there are the minerals of potassium and magnesium, which watermelons also offer abundantly."

More about:
• Sweet & Sour Watermelon Chip Jerky is a tasty healthy homemade snack food - BRT Insights 04aug2012
• Food & Drink for Outdoor Activities - BRT Insights.

Tags: watermelon , watermelon chips, cantalope, healthy snack foods, tv snacks, food dehydrator, homemade snacks, snack food recipe.
Tags: watermelon jerky, melon, colorful diet, low fat snacks, diet snacks, low calorie snacks, hors d'oeuvres, appetizers.

Labels: food-drink

Scout out the driving part of your journey on your computer.

"People around the world can now appreciate the beauty and timelessness of the wilderness through Street View. We've recently added 360-degree panoramic imagery for five of California’s national parks ... Redwood National Park ... Yosemite National Park ... Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks ... Death Valley National Park ... Joshua Tree National Park." (Official Google Blog 12july2012 )

View Larger Map

Northside Drive, Yosemite Valley, California, United States. See Half Dome in the distance or zoom in for a closer view.

Click on the Full Screen tool to get an eye-popping Street View that uses your entire screen.

Google Street View doesn't actually show us the wilderness, just the roads to the trailheads or river access points where the Google Street View camera car is allowed to drive. Hikers & bikers will find this useful to plan their drives to the trailheads and to recognize when they have arrived at the right places. Kayakers, canoers, tubers and rafters will find this useful to find some of the river access points where their boating trips begin or end. Keep in mind that the Street View images may be a few years old, so don't expect this to show any place perfectly up to the minute.

Google Street View was already available for many locations other than those listed above. First locate a place of interest by typing the place name in the search box at Google Maps (e.g. town or city, state or national park, national forest, etc.). Or find the geographic coordinates of the desired location using Acme Mapper, then copy-paste the coordinates (e.g. N 37.78808 W 119.53125 = coordinates for Yosemite National Park) into the search box at Google Maps.

In Google Maps click and drag the orange cartoon person from the navigation tool onto the map. Roads where Street View is available will display as blue lines. Drag and drop the cartoon person onto the blue line at the desired road location. Click and drag in Street View to change locations and the orientation of the view. The 360 degree panoramic view is definitely not as good as being there in person, but it is one of the coolest things you can see on a computer screen. When viewing the larger map you can click on the Zoom Out tool to go from Street View to Google Maps.

In California Google Street View provides excellent coverage of main roads and big city streets, but coverage tapers off in rural areas. Nevertheless, Google Street View is a great trip planning resource that gives a vivid panoramic view of the route to many places of interest and at least gets you close to many other destinations.

Clicking on the Link Tool will generate a link for whatever Google Map or Street View is on your screen at the time. This link can be sent to others via email to show them a picture of a meeting point or a map to a landmark of interest. They can use the Get Directions button to generate driving directions to get to that location from any other starting point.


When viewing the larger map you will see at the top of the left panel:
Get Directions - My Places - Print Tool - Link Tool


Tags: Google Street View, Google Maps, Redwood National Park, Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, California, northern California, norcal, southern California, socal.
Tags: hiking, trailheads, kayaking, canoeing, tubing, rafting, river access points.

Labels: biking, hiking, map, trip, website