An introduction

• News from Dolly Sods Mapping
  July 2010 -- New (and better) Signs; New trail signs are beginning to appear. All of the older signs were written as if they where at trail head, and not at the branch point for one trail leaving another. The new signs give both the branching trail and the through trail.

  September 2007 -- The Forest Service has completed the western section of the Raven Ridge Trail. The trail is now entirely on federal property and the junction between Raven Ridge and Rocky Ridge Trails is marked with signs for each trail.

  In addition, the Forest Service has built two sections of boardwalk completely spanning the bog areas on Bear Rocks Trail west of Dobbin Grade Trail (one down by Red Creek and the other up on the hill.) Also note the blue plastic diamond blazes on the tree.

  And gravel has been installed on some boggy areas on Rocky Ridge Trail north of Dobbin Grade Trail.

  October 2006 -- The Forest Service is now handing out free, accurate, and water resistant maps at the Seneca Rocks Visitors Center. These maps are based on the US Army Corps of Engineer's data. Our data and the Corps of Engineers data match very well.

• Why Map the Sods? - The USGS and US Forest maps are inaccurate!
  

  Since 1967 we have enjoyed hiking, skiing, and backpacking in the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in West Virginia and its adjoining US Forest Service lands. We have known that many of the better trails in the area are incorrectly marked or completely missing from many of the available Forest Service and topographic maps.

• What?
  We plan to rectify this by making our own topographic maps with the trails marked correctly. This is especially important in the high plains area north of the wilderness area.

• How?
  This would seem a little pretentious, except for the advent of the new and now fully available GPS system. All one really needs is a GPS receiver, a willingness to hike the trails, and a little software. We also received GPS data from Mary Ann and Alex Honcharik who, like us, were frustrated with the inaccurate USGS maps.

Our Method

• GPS
  The GPS page contains information on the GPS receiver, its way-point data, and on the "gpsutil" software used to down load way-points.

• Map Generation
  The "drawmap" page describes the map generation software and the modifications for the GPS data.

Our Results

• Hiking Information
  Read this before hiking or backpacking with these maps. Updated October 2004.

• Our Maps
  Here you will find maps and commentary on the maps that we have produced
  • Dolly Sods, (all updated October 2004)
    Including both the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area and the high plains north of the wilderness areas:
    the whole Dolly Sods area,
    the western edge running along Cabin Mtn,
    the high plains area north of the wilderness area,
    the canyon of Red Creek, the designated wilderness area.

  • The Roaring Plains to the south of the lower section of Red Creek.

• Our Data
  We are providing the raw GPS data for use by others. We hope this will be of use in later guides to the area.

Other links

• West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
  Maps, guide book, and a great deal more.

• US Army Corps of Engineers
  Map produced during the clearing of ordnance from the period when the Sods was a practice firing range. These are the maps that are given away at the Seneca Rocks Visitor Center. These are by far the best hardcopy maps available.

• White Grass XC Ski Area
  With maps by Mary Ann and Alex Honcharik