FREE PRINTABLE 1:24000 USGS QUAD MAPS FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

[wolfy]

FINALLY! 

This site was brought to my attention this morning via PM by my old friend MnSportsman.  He really hit the ball out of the park with this one.....THANK YOU, JB!

FREE!! Printable USGS PDF Quads
A Quick, Easy, and Free way to Download any Quad in the Country
National Geographic has built an easy to use web interface that allows anyone to quickly find any quad in the country for downloading and printing. Each quad has been pre-processed to print on a standard home, letter size printer. These are the same quads that were printed by USGS for decades on giant bus-sized pressed but are now available in multi-page PDFs that can be printed just about anywhere. They are pre-packaged using the standard 7.5 minute, 1:24,000 base but with some twists:
Page 1 is an overview map showing the Quad in context
Pages 2 through 5 are the standard USGS Quads cut in quarters to fit on standard printers
Hillshading has been added to each page of the PDF to help visualize the topography
*Please note: 0.5% of the quads have not been processed yet. These quads will appear as originally published by USGS.

http://www.natgeomaps.com/trail-maps/pdf-quads

[wsdstan]

I just went on, got the map that includes our farm, printed it out.  It shows the route of the now abandoned  Chicago and North Western RR line that used to haul sugar beets from the dumps along the Belle Fourche river into the the plant in Belle Fourche.  How neat.  It also shows most of the farms in the area although some were built after the map was made. 

Thanks Wolfy and MS for this item.

[zammer]

Thanks Boys  while this does not let me print them off per say, It does allow me to zoom in and get some great detail on local trails that had been sorely lacking with our choices

[Pennsylvania Mike]

Great find wolfy, thanks for the posting the information.

[MnSportsman]

  Glad ya found it "postworthy", Wolfy! I only had a short time to send it to ya by PM, as I wanted to get it shared here at B&B , but I have been having phone/internet connection issues for the last week & I figured if I tried to post it up myself, I would get disconnected & then have to do it again & it would have pissed me off. Better to just pass it on to the B&B Maestro of Maps & Land Nav. , Wolfy... than to muck around with it myself.


Glad to see that it has had some use to some, & Thanks! to ya, Wolfy, for sharing it with the group!
& back at ya!

[woodsrunner]

Thats awesome JB and thanks for steering me in this direction Craig...saved to favorites

[wolfy]

I'm really surprised that only 5 of us so far, have found this site to be of use to them.  I've been looking for something this simple to use for printing 1:24,000 sections of a standard 7.5 minute quadrangle map for YEARS and this is the first time it's been done, as far as I know.  Most helpful, quick, easy and FREE!

[wolfy]

I just visited this site again today when I was looking for a topo map of our property.  Northern Natural Gas is seeking 'permission' to access our property to increase the size of a pipeline that, at the present, borders our farm, but does not cross it.  Initially, they decided to change the present pipeline route which does not cross our property, to a route that goes right through the middle of it.  That plan would prevent the planting of corn & soybeans on the primo river/creek bottom ground, that I presently rent to my neighbor....for TWO years!  The very crude maps of their proposed route, that their lawyers sent to me and asked me to sign, was (what I consider to be intentionally vague & confusing) a series of red-flagged pages of gobbledegook that they expected me to sign.  Their lawyers hounded me to sign these papers....for MONTHS!  I disregarded them and did NOT sign any of them.

Around 5:00 PM, I got a knock on our door from an independent negotiator, that NNG employs to deal with difficult people, like....well, you know who!    The maps this dude presented to me were a little more understandable and clear as to the proposed route, but until I presented a REAL topographic map and MY suggested alternate and reasonable route through our property, we were getting nowhere. 

Fortunately, this guy seemed more amenable to the wishes of the landowner than those of NNG....it is his job to make things right and fair for the landowner.  I was impressed with his honesty.  We took a print from the choices in the initial, original post in this thread and THEN he could plainly see that it would be cheaper and less invasive for us AND for NNG to follow my proposed route, rather than that of the surveyors that NNG employed to make the initial survey. 

I guess what I'm trying to convey in this 'bump' of an ancient thread, is that that it pays to know where you're at and make use of it!  It certainly paid off for us!  We convinced a cabal of seemingly impossible-to-deal-with petro-companies to yield to somebody that knows a better trail to follow....simply because of this easily accessible website!

http://www.natgeomaps.com/trail-maps/pdf-quads

[theJman]

I wasn't aware of that, thanks for resurrecting this thread!  I just download the map of the area I go and it shows just how steep the hills are that I hike up.  Actually, maybe that's not a good thing...