Offroading Home

Off Road Home - On The Trail 'Less Traveled'

So Many Trails - So Little Time

Coordinates to: Mines, Formations and Petroglyphs

Google Earth: FREE GPS tracks, waypoints and maps

FREE ATV & SUV Trails for: UT, NV, AZ, CA, CO

Companion Site To: 'Offroading Home' Blog

Free Maps, Trails, Directions and Descriptions

Resources: Desert Lore, Plant Identification

'We are NOT lost, we're just not on the map.'

What's In Offroading Home

This is a site devoted to riders of ATVs, SUVs and other ORVs who await offroad escapes to the outdoors and want to "see what's out there"; or, who've already been and want to "see where they were"; or, who wish they were out and "might go someday."

Free maps: Use Google Earth to "ride" a trail before you load up your ATV or SUV. Here are free offroad trail maps for the Mountain West [Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, California] to give you ideas for your next back-road adventure. "Free" is what we really mean - no hidden software to buy before you can use them, no "stripped down version to try and scam you, no wallowing through levels of misleading advertising in order to get to them — just simply… FREE.

Sources: Tracks and waypoints from personal rides, geo-registered map overlays and hand-drawn from any other source I can get my hands on.

Resources: Tutorials, explanations, plant identification, petroglyph interpretation and links to land use authorities.

Lets Do It!

First: Get GoogleEarth (free), files won't work without it. Download, install, and learn the controls — easy.

Second: Click on a tab above for free Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California and Colorado maps.

Become A Trail Verifier

We need volunteer riders with GPS devices to help verify some trails! Many of the trail maps presented here are actual GPS tracks from rides which have been carefully uploaded, converted and formatted into a Google Earth file. But trails change! Additionally, for some known trails we haven't been able to obtain an actual track so only GPS waypoints are presented in the file.

On other trail systems (like the Utah Paiute and Arapeen) there are USFS maps available which have been carefully "registered" to GPS coordinates as an overlay to Google Earth. Then a track has been painstakingly hand-drawn following the trail seen on the satellite image. But, of course, there are clouds and trees and snow, so trails aren't always seen in the photos.

Any track which hasn't been actually created via GPS needs to be verified — which is where YOU come in. We are looking for volunteer riders who will ride the trails and send in their GPS tracks and/or coded waypoints. Use the "Contact" link above to discuss how you can help.

It also goes without saying that if you have first hand knowlege of any trail and find errors or inconsistencies, we would welcome the feedback.

Got A Question?

Well… that's what the "contact" button is for, up there at the top of the page!

"Doing GPS: For Beginners" - Tutorials

Because it's free, Google Earth has almost become the defacto tool for looking at the earth from about any angle. Most of us know about the "Global Positioning System" (GPS) and that it can tell you where you are on the earth in latitude and longitude. But beyond that much of it is still a mystery except that we know cars use it and some people can even do something to the pictures they take so they can tell where they were taken.

However, it's not that difficult to understand and use, especially if you take it in small doses and you have some sort of project you are trying to accomplish to "hang" your learning on. Enter the tutorials over on the blog: "Doing GPS: for beginners." GPS explained simply, in pieces and with specific projects in mind - from how to use Google Earth to downloading and uploading maps into your GPS unit and things in between.

 

image of Dad on ATV image of Gordon on his ATV image of Dad on Flat top mesa on ATV image of Dad on Flat top mesa on ATV