Isle Royale Forums

Here's a Google spreadsheet I wrote to help plan Isle Royale trips. I've used a version of it for years to plan my own trips, but finally converted it to Google Sheets so I could share it. The link will ask you make a copy before using it: this is so nobody else is changing your trip.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... aUsp0/copy

You select a starting point, and it steps you through all the trail or paddling segments. All entry is from drop-down lists, so it's point and click with no data entry. As you enter a trip, it shows the distance and estimated time for each segment, for each day, and for the whole trip.

You do need a Google account to use it, because you need to make a copy in your personal Google Drive before you can enter in it.
- Click the above link. You will be asked to make a copy.
- If you wish, select "File" then "Rename". You may name it whatever you want, since it is now on your personal Google Drive.

I did try and download it as an .xlsx but it didn't do very well in Excel 2008 for Mac. When I get a chance I'll try it on my work Win 7 machine with a newer version of Excel and see if that works any better.

If you check it out and find any issues with the waypoints or distances, please let me know! The hardest part was creating the database that's behind the scenes and I'm sure it's not perfect. And it doesn't do things like water-taxi for all docks, circumnavigation, etc.--more data entry for a later date. But it has all the trails and major paddling routes.

Here's a screenshot from my planned 2016 canoe trip: This is just a fun little personal project of mine. It has been a bit of work and definitely overkill for just my trips, but if just a few other folks find it useful, then it's worth sharing . And if you're concerned about viruses and such, I suppose you either trust Google or not.

And if you're really into spreadsheets and want to make your own mods or play behind the scenes, then unhide all sheets, rows, columns, and have at it! But you'll want to be familiar with very long nested functions, data validation, conditional formatting, named ranges, etc. so it's not for the faint of heart. But of course, if you break it, it's yours . (or just make another copy...)

This is great! I plugged in our May/June itinerary--took a couple of tries before I figured out that I needed to care about trail junctions.

This will make it easy to add in some day hikes on some of our zero days.

Thanks for all of your work!

Kelly wrote:took a couple of tries before I figured out that I needed to care about trail junctions.

Yeah, I thought about adding longer segments (like campground to campground) to make it simpler for those days, but it really complicates the data. Glad it's helpful!

Hey Ingo, can you post a link directly to the spreadsheet via Google Sheets? (example: https://sheets.google.com/blahblahblah). So that way I can view it at work? Ahem.

fonixmunkee wrote:Hey Ingo, can you post a link directly to the spreadsheet via Google Sheets? (example: https://sheets.google.com/blahblahblah). So that way I can view it at work? Ahem.

See if this works any better: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1300812903 Ahem

Ingo wrote: See if this works any better: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1300812903 Ahem

That link works at work, hooray (Hey, I'm on shift work). This spreadsheet is amazing, Ingo. I tried for 10 minutes to break the hiking part and couldn't. I even did a trip with going INTO the Hatchet Lake campground to see if the sheet would be smart enough to know I had to come back *out* to the Hatchet Lake CG junction...and it did.

This is an amazingly helpful tool, Ingo. How do you feel about sticky-ing this post for others to use, since we're getting into planning season for IR?

fonixmunkee wrote:I even did a trip with going INTO the Hatchet Lake campground to see if the sheet would be smart enough to know I had to come back *out* to the Hatchet Lake CG junction...and it did.

Yup, that's why I tried to break out all the little segments instead of just CG to CG. But I had to kinda guess on some the distances (typically .1 or .2 miles), and then add/substract from the CG to CG numbers, since it isn't always clear on the map. So if you find any distances that seem out of whack, let me know and I'll update. I tried to make everything match up with Mike T's trail mileage table.

fonixmunkee wrote:This is an amazingly helpful tool, Ingo. How do you feel about sticky-ing this post for others to use, since we're getting into planning season for IR?

Go for it! Glad you like it.

Is the spreadsheet locked? When I open it it doesn't allow me to enter anything.

terry.dunn wrote:Is the spreadsheet locked? When I open it it doesn't allow me to enter anything.

Hey Terry, Did you copy it first? If so, then something's wonky with Google. If not, you need to make a copy of it first to your own Google Drive. See the first post for quick instructions. I know it's a little confusing, but if everyone entered into the same one then we'd all be changing everyone else's trips!

john, thanks for the planning tool. I am a nerd when it comes to planning and staging and any new toy makes the effort that much more enjoyable.

Is there any way to change the effective portage rate constant? I would like to change speed accordingly to my pace. Jason

head2north wrote:Is there any way to change the effective portage rate constant? I would like to change speed accordingly to my pace. Jason

Just change the "Hiking" speed and/or "Trips per Portage". Effective portage speed is calculated from that: for 1 trip per portage it will be the same as Hiking; for 2 trips it's Hiking divided by 3 (one trip with canoe, one trip back, second trip with pack); and so on... So if it's a .5 mile portage and you take 2 trips, you'll actually travel 1.5 miles--but the effective portage speed is applied only to the .5 miles.

The times are rough estimates, and don't account for unloading/loading, so I use a lower than actual hiking speed. All in all those numbers give me a pretty good idea for a day, but not necessarily for each individual lake or portage. I'm probably a little slower than average hiker.

Ingo,

Thanks, yes Im a little bit tech starved. I did that and its a great tool, thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks! That is really helpful.

Oh my, I'm going to lose a good deal of time playing around with this Thanks for sharing!!!

This is incredibly useful! Thank you Ingo!