In the past week, I've entered Stage 2 for a planned September "Fly-n-drive" trip to Montana. Stage 1 (daydreaming when I'm supposed to be working) took place during lunch at my desk and a few minutes in between client appointments over the first week of this month.
So, being old school to the core, Stage 2 began with an order of updated Montana atlases from DeLorme and Benchmark. The former replaced a 1999 edition and the latter a 2008 release. Both new atlases are 2017 editions.
I had been "down" on DeLorme for some time but the new 2017 edition is a big improvement over the much older one. Even though the contour interval bumped up from 200' to 500' in the mountains and from 100' to 200' in the plains, the depiction of topography is far better due to the sharpness of the print, a slight but much-needed darkening of the contour lines, and due to the addition of shaded-relief emphasis in the plains. At this early stage of the game, my gut reaction is that the DeLorme has risen to a close equivalent to the Benchmark, though I still slightly prefer Benchmark.
For its part, the new Benchmark is very sharply printed with shaded relief for the whole state which really "pops". I'm actually wondering if the shading and colors will fade to a material extent as it ages. Hope not, as it's really a great-looking tool.
So the principal reason for this is to suggest the DeLormes and Benchmarks for "big-picture" route planning. It really looks like the two outfits are competing now and their products are of very high quality.
Oh, and the trip: September will mark 40 years of marriage. Our honeymoon was a week of backpacking in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park with car-camping out of a 1977 Honda Civic, in our 2 man backpacking tent, enroute to RMNP from and back to Charlottesville, VA. With only a week's absence planned for this one, and with the fondness we have developed for southwestern Montana over the 38 years since we first vacationed there as young childless 20-somethings in 1980 (another epic car-camping road trip from central Mississippi to Missoula and back), we're going to fly to Bozeman, rent an SUV, and do our overnights in a classic old hotel in Philipsburg, a riverside motel in Salmon, ID, and 3 nights at the Elk Lake Lodge in far southwestern Montana, within shouting distance of Brower's Spring, the source of the Missouri River.
We'll have a hike planned for nearly every day, one or two soaks in natural hot springs, a look-see at some NF campgrounds in the Big Hole to see how our camper and truck might be deployed at a future date, one or two drive-ups to above-timberline views, and a day-trip paddling the Salmon River at the upper end of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. I think we'll take a shot at visiting Brower's Spring, too. There's a fairly short and easy-looking trail to the spring from the Sawtell Observatory access road near Island Park, ID, and if we can get comfortable hiking solo in high-density grizzly country, we might do that.
Foy
Edited by Foy, 16 February 2018 - 01:03 PM.
