Large TOPO map with trails and portages.

[manumuskin]

HI I am new here and while never having been to Isle Royale yet I have been as close as Grand Portage and Copper harbor. Just never had the time to make the jump yet. I am here to soak up as much info about the island as i can before actually getting there. In the meantime I have been studying maps,books and videos and making a map of my own.I used my TOPO program CD and hand drew in all trails,portages and campsites that have been added since the topos were made.I can always make changes if you find errors or want me to include new info. basically if the info was on the topo I left it alone other then drawing in the trails. I wanted a map I could zoom out on so i could still see the trails and get the feel for the whole island while still retaining the ability to zoom in and get the full quality of a 7.5 minute topo. The map is 45.75 megs large so you may need a bit of memory to open it. I can open it in Paint and GIMP but windows media center will not open it.Tell me what you think of it and if anyone has a magellan Triton GPS I can make a gps usable map of this and post or send a copy free to anyone who wants one.
A question I have is is there any cross country hikers here? I have read that the NPS allows cross country travel on the island. I regularly do cross country where I live in the Pine barrens of Southern NJ and also do a lot in swamps and mountains in the eastern US.I want to walk the trails and kayak all the established routes first but further down the road see a lot of small lakes I'd like to hike in to and want to know if it's done regularly?
Al
Here is the link to the map.
http://emaillargefile.com/getfile.aspx?d=Z7VAST2QCWY

[manumuskin]

In regards to the cross country question I have just read the sticky post on this forum and that has answered most of my questions.I hadn't seen it before i Posted. Still wondering if a lot of folks do this.

[zims]

welcome. We dont use a gps, we use a laminated waterproof map from REI, and have done almost whole island. Its an adventure.

[manumuskin]

I have been orienteering since the 70's so know map and compass quite well. I got into GPS about eight years ago as a tool to finding old survey stones. me and a friend of mine acquire old survey maps some times over 200 year old maps (mostly copies,not originals) and we plot the locations on computer programs and then take the coords with GPS units into the woods and through various means attempt to locate these old sometimes inscribed stones. I started out benchmark hunting with topo and compass as a teenager but this is much more precise since many of these stones over the years have become buried in humus ( a good fire is always a bonus especially in my fire dominated pine barrens ecology).The GPS gets us with say 16 ft radius of the stones if plotted correctly and then hopefully probes or landscape clues will hone us in on the stone if it is not a large one (some are even chest high). The GPS is indispensable for this but otherwise I could leave the GPS home and the compass, a good map is indispensable if you don't know the area well.There are always other ways of determining direction.