Best Whole State New Hampshire Atlas?

[pedxing]

I'm looking to plan a 3 - 4 week backpacking trip mostly with resupplies - starting at the Canadian border and combining the Cohos and other trails and non-trails. My ancient New Hampshire Road Atlas is probably out of date, but has also dissolved in my trunk. I need a new Atlas for planning purposes.

I'm most interested in New Hampshire north of the Kancamagus AT and I might be able to get away with just a detailed map of New Hampshire north of the Whites - but I'll have other uses for a new Atlas. It's also useful if my wife chooses to meet up with me on the trail. Anyone have experience with the American Map or Jimapco state maps or any alternate suggestions? The ratio for the JIMAPCO scale is 1:36,000 - the American Map seems seems to be a bit smaller. The Delorme I've seen is 1:101,000.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Hampshire...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239137230&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Hampshire-Str...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239137230&sr=1-1

 

[Quietman]

I always use the Delorme, and if I need more detail I go online. I'm thinking that the Delorme shows all of the road info that you would need. I have the Maine, NH and Mass versions.

 

[Silverfox]

Hello

assuming you are basically staying on the Cohos trail

I would thing the Cohos trail map combined with the free Stae of NH map would be all you would need...

good luck..I have often thought about that hike..

 

[gram]

When you say Delorme, do you mean this one?
http://www.amazon.com/New-Hampshire...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239193930&sr=1-1

I love our copy.

 

[Stan]

I concur; and I use the ME, NH, VT and NY versions of the Delorme maps.

I concur, too, and I'll add CT/RI, WY, CO, and TX to the list.

For the COHOS hike, I think all someone would need is a COHOS trail map and the Delorme in order to get a broader detailed view of access points, escape routes, and cache points.

 

[peakbagger]

The Delorme Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia Delorme's were our "bible" for navigating the back roads when we were sectioning the AT a few years ago. More than a few times, the forest services roads looked like someones driveway and drove right through a farm before transitioning to a forest service road. We also saved a lot of miles by taking back roads in and around the mountains down there. Do note that these are more oriented to car travel than back country travel.

If you wanted to go lighter with something you could carry in your pack the USGS 100,000 sectionals, Sherbrooke, Groveton, Mt Washington and Lake Winnipesaukee are reasonably detailed with contours and backroads and some hiking trails (but not the Coos Trail). They dont tend to be stocked at all map dealers so you may have to look around to order them. Nevertheless they are an overlooked fairly good planning map and also handy for getting your bearings from a mountain top. They are bascially a large scale topo map so would be better for back country travel, once you have traced on the Coos Trail route.

 

[Mad Townie]

My best recommendation is to say that I've gone through many, many Maine DeLormes. It's absolutely wonderful. Along with the NH one, it's always in my 'Splorer.

If you ever get a chance, check out the DeLorme store in Freeport (or maybe it's Yarmouth, but near the Freeport line). It features Eartha, a HUGE globe that rotates. Or does it revolve? I think rotates. Anyway, it's over 41 feet in diameter.

Oops, the website says it revolves AND rotates.

 

[peakbagger]

Eartha at the the Delorme store does more than rotate about its own axis, it also revolves around an axis to take into account the seasonal tilt of the earth, so it does both!

Somewhere in my pile of stuff is the first edition Delorme which was basically a cleaned up copy of the Maine State Highway Atlas in a reduced size. The old versions were kind of handy as they showed all the location of all the houses in rural areas. We used them as a reference to lay out checkpoints for car rallies so that we didnt disturb the locals. It was also a good way to guess in adavnce if a seasonal road might be plowed in the winter.

 

[chinooktrail]

Ertha doesn't just revolve and rotate, she totally ROCKS!



For the Cohos section of your trip I would get 'The COHOS Trail' book by Kim Robert Nilsen. There are 9 detailed maps listed in the back to get for the trip.

I would also reccomend the Delorme for more general road planning for resupplys and maybe a shower or two... I think I am on my 3rd copy, and can add to the growing list that I have also gone through 2 AK versions as well.

 

[WhiteMTHike]

When you say Delorme, do you mean this one?
http://www.amazon.com/New-Hampshire...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239193930&sr=1-1

I love our copy.

I agree. I use the same thing for all of NH and I think it's great.

 

[Stan]

... If you wanted to go lighter with something you could carry in your pack the USGS 100,000 sectionals, Sherbrooke, Groveton, Mt Washington and Lake Winnipesaukee are reasonably detailed with contours and backroads and some hiking trails (but not the Coos Trail). They dont tend to be stocked at all map dealers so you may have to look around to order them. Nevertheless they are an overlooked fairly good planning map and also handy for getting your bearings from a mountain top. They are bascially a large scale topo map so would be better for back country travel, once you have traced on the Coos Trail route.

We could probably start a thread on who has the most, the oldest and the most dog eared and worn DeLorme "atlas and gazetteers".

No, one would not want or need the entire book on a backpack. However, copies of pertinent pages can be useful. For example, I have copied 4 pages of the Maine DeLorme that cover Baxter Park to Monson, taped them together, and they show the various logging roads which cross the 100 mile wilderness and the "main" roads they eventually lead to. I have reduced the size of these pages by about 30% to make a more manageable map.

I did this cut and paste the old way, manually, before software was generally available, at a price, to do it electronically. DeLorme, at a price, will also do it for you.

If you do it yourself, the challenge is finding an architect or engineer that will print out something that large. However, I have found that for most extended trips, 11x17 ("ledger size") works well and most office printers and some home printers do the job.

Alternatively, there are kiosks in most outdoor stores that can print out any map you want. Generally, these are National Geographic maps but they are based on topo maps and not as current as DeLorme when it comes to roads. They can also be more difficult to read than a DeLorme map, depending on the scale you are using. You can get a preview of the map you design before you buy it.

Yep, I would want a one or two page map of this kind if I were planning a COHOS end to end trip.

 

[Paradox]

I concur with the recommendations of the DeLorme. It also comes in a plastic page spiral bound version which should hold up to the rigors of a 3-4 week trip.

One interesting thing I tidbit I recall about Delorme vrs AMC trail maps was the placement of Zealand Mountain. If you did not know where Zealand was and you were to quickly peruse the AMC maps of about 15 years ago, Zealand could be interpreted as being about a mile west of its actual position. Yep, you guessed, it this is exactly where DeLorme clearly placed Zealand on its maps of the time.

 

[pedxing]

Thanks for the info. My dissolved map was the Delorme - I'm tempted to upgrade to the Jimapco atlas. Since my initial post, I've learned from "the mountain wanderer" webstite that this is the only atlas which has every road in the state. Perhaps its overkill and the Delorme is at a more useful scale. Y'all have convinced me I should get a new Delorme. Since I like maps and we are a two car household, I think I'll get the Jimapco, too - perhaps I'm just enamored with the idea that every street in New Hampshire is there.

I did join the Cohos Trail Association and got my maps and the book. My issue with the Cohos maps is that they are pretty poor quality. Perhaps its my aging eyes, but I find them pretty sketchy. The second issue is that the trail keeps mutating and I have trouble visualizing what exactly is going on based on the written re-routing info and the descriptions and the CT maps. The maps are probably all I will carry for maps for the Cohos trail, but for planning I want to have something that gives me useful detail on the surrounding area.

Right now my plan is to hike the Cohos from Canada and then take a right turn through the Pemi and, avoiding the AT as much as can be done reasonably, head towards Vermont and - if I'm really lucky - take another right at the Long Trail. I'd really like to do a Canada to Canada trip - but I'm not sure if I will have the time, speed and stamina for it.

 

[Trail Bandit]

The Delorme Atlas is indeed a good place to start. In my 14th edition of the NH Atlas (2002) I found that in the Ossipee Mountains they show roads that have long since disappeared, and show some skidder roads as paved roads. They also have interchanged the names for Mt. Roberts, and Mt. Faraway. I came across a SUV stuck in a swamp once. There was a Delorme Atlas on the seat. My edition shows that track as a paved road when in reality it is a disused skidder road. You would have thought the driver would have noticed the road conditions.

 

[carole]

You would have thought the driver would have noticed the road conditions.

A map is only as good as the person looking at it.

 

[Stash]

DeLorme

They certainly are a great resource for accurate maps and related but I found it funny that a street map that included southern Freeport (near where the main Delorme office/store is) showed the highway next to them as Route 95 rather than 295.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

In my 14th edition of the NH Atlas (2002) I found that in the Ossipee Mountains they show roads that have long since disappeared, and show some skidder roads as paved roads. They also have interchanged the names for Mt. Roberts, and Mt. Faraway. I came across a SUV stuck in a swamp once. There was a Delorme Atlas on the seat. My edition shows that track as a paved road when in reality it is a disused skidder road. You would have thought the driver would have noticed the road conditions.

The problems you cite (perhaps sans SUV) appear to be true of most every DeLorme state atlas that I own (about a dozen). I am most familiar with the New York atlas. There are numerous old abandoned roads, carriage roads, logging roads, etc. that appear on the NY atlas, and many of these have never been open to public auto traffic. So a double check with an actual highway map is always a good idea before heading out or starting down some remote backcountry road. The online google maps are adequate. But it is often more convenient to have a hard copy map for the car. I own a number of regional Jimapco, Hagstrom, and Arrow street atlases. They are all seem to be reliable and accurate for driving, but none have contour lines which is the most desirable feature of the DeLorme atlases.

One fun feature of the DeLorme atlases that was discussed a few year's back are the "Where's Waldo" images. One is supposedly hidden somewhere in each state atlas at a location which is appropriate / relevant for the image. Roy mentioned a station wagon image in the Michigan atlas that I have yet to find. I believe in another thread someone hinted that there was a hamster hidden in the New Hampshire atlas -- I haven't located that one either. I have only found three of these images: Rip Van Winkle sleeping in the Catskills, as is described in the linked thread. The Massachusetts atlas has a flying woman who appears next to her home city. The Pennsylvania atlas has a well known rodent who appears outside his native borough.

So can anyone give me a hint as to where that pesky Hampshire hamster is located? Or am I going round the wrong treadmill? Also are there hints for the hidden images in any other DeLorme state atlas?

 

[swamp]

So can anyone give me a hint as to where that pesky Hampshire hamster is located? Or am I going round the wrong treadmill? Also are there hints for the hidden images in any other DeLorme state atlas?

14th edition. Page 23.

 

[RoySwkr]

They certainly are a great resource for accurate maps and related but I found it funny that a street map that included southern Freeport (near where the main Delorme office/store is) showed the highway next to them as Route 95 rather than 295.

It used to be I-95, fixing things that change is often tougher than getting them right to begin with

 

[RoySwkr]

Somewhere in my pile of stuff is the first edition Delorme which was basically a cleaned up copy of the Maine State Highway Atlas in a reduced size.

The early NH & VT ones were too

Then ME came out similar to now except no contours, finally added contours

They once sent me a $100 check for finding 100 errors in their White Mountain map