Manitoba Geocaching Association

brucered · Joined: 11 May 2009 Posts: 9

anyone know if there are FREE LEGAL maps available showing the TRAILS for places like Assiniboine, Beaudry, The Forks, Birds Hill etc?

I have been to Assiniboine a few times now to grab some caches, but the Garmin & Ibycus maps don't show trails. I've marked a few for my own use (i'm no expert), but it sure would help to have some complete ones.

Old Billygoat · Posted: Jun 09, 2009 4:38 am Post subject:

You can get trail maps of most city parks from this website:
http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/naturalist/ns/trails/trailpoints.asp

I've attached an example.

brucered · Joined: 11 May 2009 Posts: 9

thanks. (i even work for the city and didn't know that).

i'm guessing they are NOT uploadable though.

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

During the last couple of months I have walked all of the significant trails within the Assiniboine Forest on the south side of Grant Avenue. My goal was to get some exercise and fresh air in a natural environment and to capture the tracks with my GPS for my own purposes and to share them.

I have attached an image of these tracks superimposed on my MapSource software. I colour coded them to help identify them. The magenta tracks are the Sagimay and Preston Trails which are provided snow clearing by the City. The white trails are the least significant; still used by people but in some cases only one step up from being deer trails with no bush whacking required.

These tracks are all assembled in a gpx file which I would be glad to freely share with anyone who might be interested.

brucered · Joined: 11 May 2009 Posts: 9

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

I don't know if this going to work. But I'll try to attach the gpx file to this post and we'll see if that will make it accessible as a download.

ruylopez · Joined: 16 Aug 2010 Posts: 44 Location: Winnipeg

Nice job. The GPX file is downloadable and I have some new trails on my GPSr now, which should help nicely when I'm trying to decide which trail to follow to a new cache.

You might want to consider a contribution to OpenStreetMap.org. Their current trails in the forest don't match what you've got.

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

These Assiniboine Forest trails have now been entered into OpenStreetMaps.org. So if you are on Geocaching.com and viewing any cache in the Forest south of Grant, you can click on the "Open Street Maps" option under "for online maps" and you will be able to see the cache relative to these trails. You might need to zoom in a bit before the trails appear.

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

During the course of 2012 I visited Pembina Valley Provincial Park a number of times and walked all of the named trails in the park capturing the tracks with my GPS. Those tracks are now all combined into one gpx file which is attached to this post in zipped format and available to download. If you download the file to your computer, open it with the software that came with your GPS and then transfer it to your GPS, the tracks will appear on your GPS if you ever find yourself in that neck of the woods.

Those tracks have also been entered into OpenStreetMaps. So, if you are viewing the caches in the area on Geocaching.com, and you select the option to view the OpenStreetMaps map, the tracks will also appear once you have zoomed in enough.

Have fun with this.

MissionMode · Joined: 27 Nov 2009 Posts: 105

Boy oh boy I could have used that one last year when I went for one of the oldest caches in manitoba. My GPS was totally wrong about both roads and trails in that park.