Hiking Map Project

[tekewin]

I've been geeking out on a new hiking map over the last couple of months. I'm as excited about the tech as I am about the map.

I created an interactive map of my hikes (https://ironhiker.cloud/hikes) using the powerful Datasette tool by Simon Willison. The result was an intuitive, easy-to-use map that links each hike to a full report on my blog. Many interesting technologies are at play. The main database (All_Hikes) has everything. Then, there are subsets for my Favorites, Ultras, Sierra Club lists, and my personal Iron Mountains CA list. The hardest part was getting all the lat/longs for each summit.

map.jpg

desert.png

If anyone is interested in the details (probability: very low), the underlying database is sqlite3, a self-maintaining SQL compliant standalone database. The mapping functionality is provided by a datasette plugin, and it was deployed to Google Cloud Run as a service, then mapped to a custom domain (ironhiker.cloud). Google Cloud Run automatically scales your application instances as needed, but is a scale to zero service, meaning when it is not in use, all instances are killed and no charges are incurred.

I know, it's a lot of work for a map, but I wasn't happy with a custom Google Map. I wrote a more detailed article about it (https://symbols.hashnode.dev/interactiv ... ogle-cloud), and I'd be happy to help anyone else set up their own maps.

I'll go crawl back in my nerd hole now.

[Nate U]

This is super cool! Both the map and the scope of your peak bagging...

I love how it groups hikes and counts them in proximity to one another depending on your zoom level.

Is there a way to see your GPS tracks on the map? That would be great. And is it possible for the map to be topographic?

This is kinda like my master google earth archive. I really love being able to have the GPS tracks visible, but of course its not available to others online.

[tekewin]

I am not sure about adding GPS tracks since that would have to come from a different data source (GPX files vs the CSV data imported for the hikes).

The map is using a program called Leaflet via a plugin called datasette-cluster-map (https://datasette.io/plugins/datasette-cluster-map). A topographic layer can be used instead of the standard OpenStreetMap layer, but it might have to be one or the other. I'll experiment with that.

[Sean]

This is very cool. How difficult would it be to create a map for all the TRs in the San Gabriels section?

[Matthew]

This is very cool. How difficult would it be to create a map for all the TRs in the San Gabriels section?

I second what Sean said. Nate and I have talked about doing something like that which can link back to the forum. I've thought about making it in caltopo but maybe your site woild be easier to work with.

[tekewin]

A map like that can be created with the same tech stack. I could probably set it up on the same server that hosts the forum.

Gathering all the data would be the hard part. The input to the web site is spreadsheet. It can have as many columns and detail as you want, but it needs to contain the GPS coordinates of the location (latitude, longitude) and a URL for the link. There can be multiple entries for each trailhead/gps coords and the map handles it.

There are ongoing cloud expenses, but fairly minimal. It's usually $0.50/month for me, but my site doesn't generate that much traffic. A Gabes map would be busier.

[Matthew]

Caltopo allows unlimited visits. Dima might know of other options tho

[dima]

Caltopo allows unlimited visits. Dima might know of other options tho

I don't know what your goal is. Caltopo allows unlimited visits today. In the future caltopo might not allow anything and it might not even exist anymore. Probably you want to control your own destiny

[Sean]

So, at minimum, the spreadsheet needs columns for: trailhead/starting point, latitude, longitude, URL? Then a "description" would be nice too? Would the description be seen on the map display? I suppose the URL and description could be automated, if you just pull the description from the TR title, but the rest would have to be done manually. I could help with the manual part if someone does the automated part.

[Sean]

Nevermind. I see on your map the pop-up has a title and description.

Screenshot_20250910-052515.Chrome.png

So, we just need to decide whether the coordinates pin to the destination or starting point. That probably depends on what sort of hike it is.