Elevation Lines on Small Maps
Chr9s
🖼️ 2 images Newcomer
My exploring maps are based on 6 mile wide hexes. I'd like to include topographical elevation lines on the maps but can't find a good resource to guide me on distance vs incline verses what's an easy stroll verses what's something that have to be climbed. I've searched these forums and checked some hiking sites but nothing has really helped. Has anyone done this on either 5 or 6 mile sized maps?
Thanks
Comments
Reading contour maps like this is something of a specialist skill. It often benefits from field experience of walking over the terrain using a suitable map, or looking at an area and picking out features from the map as comparisons. Sometimes, it's very obvious what's too steep because of how close the contour lines are together - closer = steeper, basically.
Some folks are able to look at a contour map and visualise the terrain, and this is something you can teach yourself with practice, though not everyone finds it either possible or very easy to do.
You might find plotting out scale drawings, cross-sections at a right-angle to the contour lines, gives you a better idea of what the topography will really be like.
You might also examine real-world contour maps at an appropriate kind of scale to what you're planning, and look at where, and how, water flows over the landscape. Water always flows downhill, and goes for the easiest route, which often means where there's a steeper gradient.
However, you'd probably find more useful advice by searching online for "interpreting topographic maps", as there are a lot of suitable sites and videos regarding this topic. Good luck!
You can go here to the National Map https://apps.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ and select areas in the US and zoom in pretty far and you can display the contour lines. There are measureing tools so you can see how far a given path is and a profile tool so you can see the roughness of the terrain. However, the height is exaggerated so it looks like you are climbing mount everest, but it can give you a good idea of how things are in relative terms.
The closer together the contour lines, the steeper the slope. If they come together, or are very dense, or even end, with just one contour along a spot, then you have reached a cliff. Here's a screen shot which may help.
There are similar sites that provide information in other ways.
I looked at some topographical maps but oddly they didn't have a scale bar on them so I could determine how far apart the topo lines were. I'm looking at Robel's image and the map itself doesn't have a scale bar. Just the elevation profile.
CG
The scale bar is in the lower left corner and says 600 feet. There is also a measurement tool on the menu bar, it is the 8th button from the left, next to the one which is black in color, which is the profile tool.