SummitPost.org

Hi there!

I'm planning on climbing Toubkal in March and need a Topographic map of the area. The only decent one I could find so far is a 1:40,000 of the Atlas Mountains in general. While Toubkal and the contours are visible, I was looking for a smaller scaled version, hopefully in the range of 1:15,000 or so.

As a general question, is there anywhere I can order a custom topographic map from for any mountain location in the world? Surely there must be a company somewhere who can print specific ones for any expedition?

Would love to hear your feedback and advice.

Thank you kindly.

Mark G.

I haven't heard of a service like the one you describe. Typically topo data is going to come from one of two sources:

1) Electronic copies of printed maps produced by government organizations. These are free in the USGS and Canada, cost money in most parts of Europe, and are totally unavailable at small scales in many parts of the world.

2) Web maps built off a database of elevation, trail and vegetation information using something like Mapnik to render the map tiles. These tend to be less comprehensive than the government-produced maps, but a lot better than nothing. The best hiking-climbing oriented map with global coverage I've found is the OpenCycleMap.

I have a website oriented at US-based topos but you can use it to print OCM and Google Satellite imagery elsewhere. Note that I haven't tested the UTM grid and lat/long formatting outside of North America. OpenCycleMap has some trails on it, but I have no idea how accurate they are:

http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=31.05724 ... &z=15&b=oc

Hi Matt,

Thank you so much for your advice mate! I checked out the site and it'll be very useful. Will get some crystal clear images printed to go with my current 1:40000 map.

Regards,
Mark