Route planning, how do you do yours?

[Ray Young]

How do you work out your long distance routes. Using OS 1:50 000 scale for reference I transfer off road paths onto a road map. I used to use OS 1:250 000 maps that also showed topography but they don't seem to make them any more. This is an AA 1:300 000 scale of Scotland which I'm slowly filling in, not all of it, just the bits i'm interested in. I'm not totally anal about getting it exactly right as all it is really doing is showing me a bigger picture of what paths connect to where in order to make a big route. If several paths head in the same direction I only show one or two as the real route will be planned ultimately on the 1:50 000 scale.
The Cairngorms, still needs another once over to make sure I haven't missed anything.

[Bearbonesnorm]

When I'm working out the grid references for the WRT, I use two different methods:

1/ Open one map at a time, pin it to the wall and throw 5 darts at it. I pick the three that look most interesting and/or boggy.

2/ Open three maps, lay them out on the floor then let the dogs walk over them. Any paw prints left on the maps when they've finished become GR.

[Ray Young]

And the best bits will be the dog's bollocks. .

[ScotRoutes]

I'm mostly using the OS Getamap service at the moment. You can draw a route on the 1:50k or 1:25k map and then zoom out to look at it in a higher scale. It also has aerial photography which is useful for spotting un-mapped tracks.

Garmin Basecamp works well too. I've installed the OpenStreetMaps and it uses the 1:50K on my Dakota. By flipping about between them I get a pretty comprehensive view of what's available.

My path survey activity is mostly governed by the Scotways Heritage Paths website. It's just a pain that there is no way of downloading GPX tracks from it.

[gairym]

I usually find something that looks interesting on a paper map and plot it into something like bikeroutetoaster (or straight into Basecamp) and then export as a .gpx which I then upload to my Garmin though I always try to take the paper map with me just in case.

[Ray Young]

My computer hates os getamap, the longer the route the longer it takes to mark waypoints and it has a habit of zooming out or jumping to another place for no apparent reason.

[ScotRoutes]

I never have the random jumping about thing but it's true that it starts to take a while when drawing longer routes. The other issue is that it tries to write to my Garmin as a route with waypoints and longer routes exceed the garmin limit (and it doesn't throw up an error when the number of waypoints is exceeded). It really needs to be a track and trackpoints for it to work properly .

[summittoppler]

Obviously you can't beat an OS map, but if I'm going somewhere new then I use geograph
http://www.geograph.org.uk/mapper/?t=to ... 62&centi=1

[Cheeky Monkey]

When I'm working out the grid references for the WRT, I use two different methods:

1/ Open one map at a time, pin it to the wall and throw 5 darts at it. I pick the three that look most interesting and/or boggy.

2/ Open three maps, lay them out on the floor then let the dogs walk over them. Any paw prints left on the maps when they've finished become GR.

PMSL

[Taylor]

When I'm working out the grid references for the WRT, I use two different methods:

1/ Open one map at a time, pin it to the wall and throw 5 darts at it. I pick the three that look most interesting and/or boggy.

2/ Open three maps, lay them out on the floor then let the dogs walk over them. Any paw prints left on the maps when they've finished become GR.

Finally, he's admitted it!!!!!!

[Bearbonesnorm]

I do have a third method but sadly I haven't used it this year. It involves dragging flatfishy around the hills for three days and marking down every bit of trail/track/road that he pulls a face at. All the bits where he pulls a 'real' face or says something like 'you b'stard, you said it just undulates' become grid references

[Taylor]

I do have a third method but sadly I haven't used it this year. It involves dragging flatfishy around the hills for three days and marking down every bit of trail/track/road that he pulls a face at. All the bits where he pulls a 'real' face or says something like 'you b'stard, you said it just undulates' become grid references

:D

[faddyvictor]

Have just used JustGoRide to plan WRT, it a lets you use 1:50 and 1:25 scale mapping plus an aerial view option, you can then save to a garmin or save the gpx file, I save the file and then transfer to satsync to load on my satmap gps.

[nobby]

How do you work out your long distance routes. Using OS 1:50 000 scale for reference I transfer off road paths onto a road map. I used to use OS 1:250 000 maps that also showed topography but they don't seem to make them any more. This is an AA 1:300 000 scale of Scotland which I'm slowly filling in, not all of it, just the bits i'm interested in. I'm not totally anal about getting it exactly right as all it is really doing is showing me a bigger picture of what paths connect to where in order to make a big route. If several paths head in the same direction I only show one or two as the real route will be planned ultimately on the 1:50 000 scale.
The Cairngorms, still needs another once over to make sure I haven't missed anything.

If it is wild, lonely and largely passed by by progress aren't the old Bartholomews 2" to the mile or 1:100,000 still useful? A lot of bridlepaths and other rights of way will already be on them.