Mapping

As long as we’ve known G, we’ve known that he’s a bit of a map geek.  He makes his own maps of the property and the area, which, if you’re a map geek and you want maps of the places you go around here, you have to do since good, detailed maps for specific areas of Belize are difficult if not impossible to find.  When we first started getting to know the property, G gave us .pdf maps of the property for our iPads that work with a GPS program, so we can always see where we are.  I immediately geeked out and started carrying my iPad around with me when we went for walks or horseback rides or drives on the property.  One of the first days we were officially working here, we had to pick up some guests at Manakin Falls.  We weren’t quite sure where it was, and it wasn’t marked on any of the maps, so we had to find our way there with verbal directions from G over the radio.  His directions were good, and we found it without a problem, but I decided I was going to remedy the problem and start pinning locations on our .pdf iPad map.  I carted my iPad to the base of the falls, dropped a pin, and took a picture.  I looked at the Avenza map app when we got home, and realized that I could attach the picture to the pin, name the pin, and have a pretty snazzy little map.  When Tom saw what I was doing, he took a closer look at the app, and realized that you can do all sorts of cool geeky things with the pins, like classify different marked spots by color, add descriptions, turn different classifications on and off, and send the pins to other maps.  A project was born, and Tom was suddenly on board with carrying the iPad everywhere so we could map everything on the property:  buildings, gates, vistas, waterfalls, beetle outbreaks, and bridges.  Our map quickly became prickly with pins.

Around the same time we had started working on this project, G realized that there were many new roads and trails on the property that weren’t on his current maps.  He and M were planning a trip to the US where they could more easily get big printed versions of the maps if he could update the maps before they left, so the re-mapping project suddenly had a deadline.  Driving every possible road with a GPS was also a good way for Tom and me to get to know the property, and we could work on our pinning project.

G&M had good friends coming to visit right about when we decided to do this, and Aaron, the husband, also loves these kinds of projects.  So, M packed lunch for the four of us, G and Aaron put the good GPS in the open backed Land Rover, Tom drove, George navigated and ran the GPS, and Aaron and I stood in the back.  We spent a delightful day driving around the eastern portion of the property learning the roads, property lines, and compartment lines, and absorbing bits of farm history from G.  Whenever we got to something pin-able, we would stop so I could drop the pin on my map and take some pictures, usually interrupting my ongoing conversation with Aaron with, “Excuse me, I have to go to work now!”  The map feature also allows notes to be entered and tied to a pin, so I further expanded the use of the tool by taking notes on what G was telling us, such as what water crossings were next up for bridges, and what kind of bridge he envisioned at each site.  We visited the hack site where the endangered orange breasted falcons are being released, and stopped for a few good views of 1000 Foot Falls that aren’t open to the general public.  We also had a primer on beetle damage identification, since the beetle has done quite a bit of recent damage to the east of the property and there are too many examples of beetle infestation in different stages.


We drove on all sorts of roads, trails, and lines that may or may not have been considered map-able in a lesser vehicle with a less brave driver, and only had trouble in one spot where Tom decided to make a stop for me to drop a pin…on a bridge crossing that was crumbling away under us.  Aaron and G yelled at Tom to “GO!” as I was bailing out of the back of the truck, and Tom, to his credit, reacted quickly enough to move the truck before the hind end was so far in the hole it couldn’t get out.  We made it back to the farm around 6PM for a delicious dinner prepared by M and Sarah while we were out, with about half of the property mapped.

G was comfortable enough with Tom’s driving, and he knew we had hiked many of the roads and trails around the farm, so that he asked us to finish the GPSing project on our own while he did desk work.  We spent another day driving around, and then another couple of half days filling in gaps and looking for trails that we didn’t see on our first pass but that G knew we had missed, and finished the project just before M&G left.  We sunk the truck once, when we went down a compartment boundary to an uncross-able water crossing in a thunderstorm, and backed into a mud-filled ditch that we couldn’t see because of the water flowing over it when we tried to turn around.  We were only a mile or two from the farm, so Jose came down on the tractor and yanked us out.  We saw a herd of peccaries on one of the boundary lines, and a bunch of grey foxes, a number of tapir tracks, and a few interesting birds while we were out and about, and we finished much more familiar with the property.  We finished the project comfortable with the general layout of the roads and compartments, and knowing what we need to know if we need to get somewhere quickly during fire season.  Now we just have to hope we don’t have to use that information – but if we get lucky and it’s a couple of years before a bad fire, at least we will have up to date maps.