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Steamboat trail map on Google Earth

Hi all,

For my own amusement I spent a few evenings drawing the Steamboat trail map on Google Earth. Have a look at the attached kmz file in Google Earth and let me know what you think. There will undoubtedly be some errors, so please let me know if you spot any and I'll fix them. For some runs (e.g. First Chance, Last Chance, Big Meadow, and part of Rendezvous Way) I just couldn't match the trail map to the features on the ground, so I had to guess. Also, I couldn't figure out the route of the Christie Peak Express (perhaps because it wasn't build/complete when the picture was taken) - did they re-use the old Christie III lift towers? I've assumed so and drawn it that way.

It's a shame that Google Earth don't have a winter picture of the Steamboat area because that would look great. (They do have one of Whister and it looks awesome - you see skiers and their rooster tails!)

Hope you like it and find it useful.

Glenn.

Tags: google earth, steamboat, trail map

Attachments:

Steamboat.kmz, 66 KB

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by James on October 16, 2010 at 4:35pm

Nice job!

Regarding Christie III, I think the path is close to the old one, but not the same. We definitely placed new towers for the new chair tho'....I remember a giant helicopter ferrying them up the hill one at a time as the crew scrambled to bolt them to the caisons (sp?).

Will take a more detailed look at your .kmz and see if I can help refine it with you.

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on October 17, 2010 at 8:29am

Thank you! :-)

There seem to be more lift stations in the base area than are required... So I'm guessing that some old ones haven't been removed, or the photo is so old (I think it's from 2003) that it doesn't tally with recent trail maps. The carpet lifts all seem to be in the wrong places too, so either they're relocated in the summer (when the pic was taken) or they've been moved over the years.

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Permalink Reply by Rick on October 17, 2010 at 8:10pm

More specifically, to my recolection (not necessarily perfect), Christie III is exactly where it always was. The upper portion of Christie Express replaced Christie II (a fixed grip double). Going further back, Christie III replaced Christie I (or as it was originally called, just the "Christie Lift".

In the pre-gondola days, you had to ride Christie Lift to the bottom of Heavenly Daze, then ski over to Thunderhead Lift, to get to the Thunderhead Building, and the back runs as they were added. All lifts were fixed-grip doubles. When capacity got strained, they added Christie II in parallel to Christie Lift and renamed the old one Christie I. If you go in late Spring, you can often see caissons from all the previous lifts in the Christie path as the snow melts.

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Permalink Reply by Mickey on October 16, 2010 at 9:31pm

That is great. Is there a way to add the name of the slopes.

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on October 17, 2010 at 8:22am

Thanks! :-)

I think you can only do that with placemarks, not routes. But if you left click on the trail its name will appear, along with a comment if I've entered one. (You can change the comments by right clicking and selecting properties. While you're changing the properties you can also move the trail points around, if they're not quite in the right place. The way it adds and deletes points takes some getting used to though.)

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on April 9, 2011 at 1:49pm

I figured out a way to do it. It's an undocumented feature, only works in Google Earth 6, and is a major pain to implement (I had to manually edit the kml file) but the results look quite cool. I've attached a kml file for anyone who's interested. Load this up in addition to the previous one and you can check or uncheck the names you want or don't want to appear. As far as I'm aware this is the first time anyone has ever done this... :-)

Attachments:

Steamboat_names.kml, 193 KB

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on April 10, 2011 at 3:22pm

Attached is a better version. (The previous one had problems with bowls and glades, where the label would appear horizontally and prevent nearby labels from appearing.)

Attachments:

Steamboat_names.kml, 193 KB

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on January 21, 2012 at 3:48pm

The format required by Google Earth 6.1 and above is slightly different so here's an updated names file...

Attachments:

Steamboat_names.kml, 190 KB

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on January 22, 2012 at 9:15am

Here's a better one - I made the labels smaller...

Attachments:

Steamboat_names.kml, 191 KB

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Permalink Reply by Pete Leyden on October 18, 2010 at 9:56am

I was looking all over the Net for a Trail Map .KMZ last Thursday. Awesome work!

Here's my Favorite Screen Shot. Can't wait to get there in Jan.

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Permalink Reply by Baggzy on October 18, 2010 at 5:04pm

Glad I could help. :-)

I like the official trail map, but Google Earth adds an extra dimension (no pun intended). I haven't been to Steamboat before so I wanted to see it from all directions to get a real feel for it. I also like to know where the narrow trails (or cat tracks) are so I can avoid them, and like to get more of a feel for how steep the black runs are. Google Earth is good enough that you can do that now.

I will be there in January too, so see you on the mountain! :-D

January could be absolutely epic if La Nina works its magic. Cross your fingers... and anything else that can be crossed.

G.

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Permalink Reply by Sian and Nige on October 19, 2010 at 4:30am

oh thanks for putting this up, just logged in and havent read this thread properly yet but thats a fabulous view of the runs, although we have been to the boat more than once i often struggle when looking at the mountain to work out just what is where... think i can work out which run is which from this..