Big Sur Ventana/SilverPeak Trail Map
with Camps and Points of Interest

Many trail and camp locations on USGS/USFS/WildernessPress/NationalGeographic maps of the Big Sur Ventana and Silver Peak Wilderness Areas are incorrect!  This Big Sur Trail Map provides accurate trail and camp locations based on local knowledge (mostly GPS'd), and also locally-known "use trails", water sources, waterfalls, and other features in the Ventana and Silver Peak Wilderness areas and in Big Sur state parks.  It can be displayed in a web browser (with quadrangle map or shaded terrain or satellite image background) or displayed in Google Earth software or printed in page-sized quadrangle map sections or loaded into a Garmin GPS.

You cannot assume that a wilderness trail will be passable and followable - the trail may be blocked by brush or downfall and/or its tread may not be apparent, especially for secondary trails and "use" trails.  Brush grows quickly in these wilderness area, extensive falls of fire-damaged trees occur after strong winds, trails along the steep slopes are very subject to erosion, and maintainence is spotty.  Hiker-reported trail conditions are available in the on-line VWA Ventana Wilderness Trail Reports and VWA Silver Peak Wilderness Trail Reports.  Check before you go - you may be very glad you did!  I've encountered too many hikers who had no clue regarding the difficulties they were going to encounter, and who did not end up with the enjoyable wilderness experience they had anticipated.  Where tread is spotty, and confusion with animal tracks likely, use of a GPS loaded with accurate trail data is recommended! 

In a browser/GE display, left-clicking on a Trail Map line or icon displays an "information bubble".  For trails, that includes the latest summary of hiker-reported trail conditions (when available) with link to the full VWA Trail Report, trail metrics (distance & cumulative elevation gain), and a GPS-format data file link. 

To display a "Gmap4" Quadrangle Trail Map in your browser,  click here
Trails depicted on the USGS quadrangle map can be compared to actual trail locations!

To display a "Google Maps" Shaded Terrain Trail Map in your browser,  click here
Includes sidebar useful when location of trail/camp is unknown - expand sidebar, then click on a name to "fly" there

To download single-page-printable Trail Map sections,  click here
Trail Map trails/camps/etc. are overlaid onto a printable USGS quadrangle map

To download a Google-Earth-format Trail Map for your PC's "Google Earth",  click here
Saving/moving the resulting GE sidebar link to "My Places" will automatically load+use the latest version at each GE start
(Note: the downloadable GE PC program is more capable than the GE browser plugin)

To download a Garmin-format Trail Map for your Garmin GPS,  click here

To compute route metrics (mileage & cumulative elevation gain) between two V/SP locations,  click here

To display a specific location (lat/lon OR section/township/range) on a quadrangle map, click here

To download multiple trail/camp/water GPX files, click here

For Big Sur Map Collection (includes historical trail maps), click here

Trailmap Notes:
• Green trail/camp indicates verified location  (left-click on trail for its current condition)
• Yellow trail/camp indicates UNverified location  (left-click on trail for its current condition)
• Black trail/camp is "historic", i.e. no longer used
• Orange trail is a non-USFS "use trail"  (trail condition unknown)
• Tan campground has nearby public vehicular access (possibly 4-wheel-drive only)
• Water information may not be valid during drought year (duh!)

General Usage Notes:
• Mouse left click on trail/camp/etc displays feature info
• Mouse drag moves map
• Mouse wheel zooms in/out at cursor
• Icon position not exact if two icons overlap (as icons then offset for better display)
• Can get missing segments or icons if zoom in/out too quickly, before line/point re-draw has time to complete
• If map loses trails or becomes otherwise confused, use browser "Reload" button
• If info "bubble" is displayed, zoom-in will include bubble site (useful for forcing zoom-in to include desired location)
• For Browser Printing:   use browser "File->Print Preview", adjust if necessary (often "Landscape" is better than "Portrait"), then click "Print".  [sometimes, e.g. in older browsers, you must select Page 1 only for "Portrait" orientation or Page 2 only for "Landscape" orientation] 
For Google Maps Printing:   its "Print" link provides another printing option. 
For One-Page-Printable Quadrangle Map Sections:   click here
Note that available inkjet-printer-compatible synthetic papers are tear-resistant, grease-resistant, and water-resistant/proof (~50/90¢ per sheet) - one on-line source is Hi-Performance Papers

Gmap4-specific Usage Notes:
• The "MyTopo" quadrangle map background includes USFS trail and camp locations (but much is inaccurate!)  
• Backgrounds "Satellite", "Terrain", and "Map" ala Google Maps are also available as is "USGS Topo" topo map   (under "MyTopo" button).
• Mouse left double-click centers map
• For lat/lon info: right click on map

GoogleMaps-specific Usage Notes:
• Sidebar can be removed/added by clicking «/» at sidebar top-right
• Backgrounds "Satellite" and "Map" also available (under "More" button)
• "Terrain"/"Topo" backgrounds can only zoom in to a 1000/500 ft scale vice the 50 ft scales of "Satellite" and "Map"
• Green GM National Forest area does not depict in-holdings within the National Forest
• Mouse left double-click on map centers and zooms in on that location
• For lat/lon info: in "My Maps" (Google Account required) click "New", enable "Lat/Lng Marker", and "Save changes" - then right-mouse-click on map gives option to place marker with location's lat/lon
• You can direct Google Maps to many geographical features by typing a name such as "Cabezo Prieto" into the search entry box at top center.  Apparently this works for all features named on a USGS topo map.  Entering a partial name can also produce useful results, e.g. "Doolans Hole" is not in the database but will be found if entered because "Doolans Hole Creek" is in the database.  Adding ", CA" will limit the results to California.  And entering a latitude+longitude (in a format known to GM) will direct GM to that location. 
• Trail metrics data can be cut off by or extend beyond the "bubble" which pops up when a trail is left-clicked - this is a Google Maps problem

GoogleEarth-specific Usage Notes:
• Website trail/camp/etc GPX file downloads broken:   Google Earth has now added an internal browser, which instead of saving a GPX file download from this website as a normal browser would, will try (unsuccessfully!) to display it in GE, even if you try to defeat this behavior by enabling the "Show web results in external browser" option.  To download a trail/camp/etc GPX file, you must instead use one of the Big Sur Trailmap options which opens directly in a browser or use the GPX file download webpage.
• Note that Google Earth can also display quadrangle topo maps as a background - for instructions on installing and using them see Adding Topographic Enhancements to Google Earth
• You can "fly" Google Earth to many geographical features by typing a name such as "Cabezo Prieto" into the "Search/FlyTo" entry box.  Apparently this works for all features named on a USGS topo map.  Entering a partial name can also produce useful results, e.g. "Doolans Hole" is not in the database but will be found if entered because "Doolans Hole Creek" is in the database.  Adding ", CA" will limit the results to California.  And entering a latitude+longitude (in a format known to GE) will "fly" GE to that location. 
• Note that while Google Earth will directly read GPX files, it also filters them by eliminating some points.  So if you download the tracklog from your GPS directly to Google Earth, the full detail of your track will not be displayed.  But GE does not filter Google-Earth-format files.  If you wish to see all recorded GPS points, you can use the free gpsBabel software to both download the tracklog from your GPS and convert it to a GE-format KMZ file for loading into GE.  Alternatively, you can use Garmin's BaseCamp or MapSource software to download the tracklog and then use gpsBabel to convert that file into a KMZ file. 

GPS Notes:
• Free, high-resolution (quadrangle-quality) contour line maps covering California can be loaded onto a Garmin GPS by using the download and instructions at California Topo Map webpage.  [A note on that page recommends using a newer dataset, but I do NOT recommend that for our area - in my opinion, the additional information it includes is seldom useful and simply clutters up the small screen, making the contour information harder to read.  And it highlights "trail" lines, but since those use USFS data which is often incorrect they are often misleading, more harmful than helpful.]  But its "official" trail lines are often inaccurate.  For hiking in Big Sur, use the Garmin-format Big Sur Ventana/SilverPeak Trail Map since it has accurate trail and camp locations in addition to contour line data. 

Technical Notes:
• USGS NED 1/3-arcsec elevations have been added to all gpx files
• Cumulative elevation gain & loss ("ftUP" and "ftDN") calculation uses smoothed data for better accuracy

Disclaimer: the provided information is believed the best available but can contain errors.

If you have something to contribute or find an error, you can send an email to Jack Glendening at:
About the creator

Additional resources:
To download USFS trail location data (kmz file) for display in Google Earth, click here   [NB: some USFS trail locations are very inaccurate]

Copyright:
The information and data on this website are copyrighted by John W. Glendening.   You may freely search, view, download and print the documents and information contained on this site for personal and non-commercial purposes.  This information is provided 'as is', without any warranty of any kind.   GPX file copyright