Everything field checked so far has been drafted. That's 2.23 sq km, or a little more than half of the northern half of the map. The southern half of the map is bigger though. I'm averaging about 40 hours/sq km for field checking. If you factor in the drafting and other prep work, it's more like 68 hours/sq km. This is in terrain that is very familiar to me. When I move into the boulders south of the powerline my speed will probably decrease. But next I will move into the bend of the river, which has different terrain but no boulders: fields, pine plantations, and flood plain.
Hopefully I can work in another 80 hours before the end of the year and have the northern map completely field checked. I may take a weeks vacation, a "staycation", and just work on the map in October.
But there is enough to run on now. 550 acres is plenty for an orienteering meet - but that will have to wait for lots of other things to happen first.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Spider Population Explosion
It all begins with just a handful in April. Those have babies and the babies have babies and so forth and so on. How many generations are there in one summer? Who knows, but by the end of August there is a spider web on every branch. Wearing a bill cap is a necessity. Imagine blundering into a web and having the spider dangling before your eyes, or looking down at your shirt to see one crawling up towards your neck. By the end of he day I am covered in webs.
The good news is I finished another page this weekend - eight hours on Saturday and six on Sunday. The area west of the inholding is done, including the beaver swamp. It's about 200 meters long and 150 meters wide. Most of the long, wide flat area is light green and almost featureless. A nice creek meanders through it. The lidar contours are indispensable for mapping that creek. As long as he drop is 2 feet or so, the lidar picks it up. I used to have to do this by pace and bearings.
And what is this thing? More important, how did it get out in the middle of the woods with no roads anywhere around? It's a meter tall and three meters long, made out of that hard black plastic. There's some sort of gate at one end. It looks like a standpipe for a pond. I suppose it could have floated down the mighty Chattahoochee in a flood - it's about 150 meters from the river.
Another milestone - once I get caught up with the drafting, I will have enough map to run on. My plan is to finish the first deliverable for the orienteering club before Christmas. Next area will be north into the Chattahoochee Bend. Much different terrain - open fields, pine plantations, and flood plain.
The good news is I finished another page this weekend - eight hours on Saturday and six on Sunday. The area west of the inholding is done, including the beaver swamp. It's about 200 meters long and 150 meters wide. Most of the long, wide flat area is light green and almost featureless. A nice creek meanders through it. The lidar contours are indispensable for mapping that creek. As long as he drop is 2 feet or so, the lidar picks it up. I used to have to do this by pace and bearings.
And what is this thing? More important, how did it get out in the middle of the woods with no roads anywhere around? It's a meter tall and three meters long, made out of that hard black plastic. There's some sort of gate at one end. It looks like a standpipe for a pond. I suppose it could have floated down the mighty Chattahoochee in a flood - it's about 150 meters from the river.
Another milestone - once I get caught up with the drafting, I will have enough map to run on. My plan is to finish the first deliverable for the orienteering club before Christmas. Next area will be north into the Chattahoochee Bend. Much different terrain - open fields, pine plantations, and flood plain.
Monday, August 17, 2009
One Mile an Hour
I set the GPS to record some stats while I field checked on Saturday. Five and a half miles of walking back and forth and up and down for five and a half hours - averaging about a mile an hour. It seems like I should have covered a large area it I walked for five and a half miles, but no - that's not the way that field checking works. Up the bottom of a reentrant, then down a little higher up, then up on the spur, then repeat in the next reentrant. Backtrack when I find a mistake. Wander about in the flat by the river, poking around in the tall cane, then try to sort out an old road that appears out of nowhere. So there is a lot of walking for a small amount of area covered.
I have proof that the river floods the park. Found lots of plastic trash congregating in this section. The river bank is two contours high (six meters), so that's a pretty good flood that can deposit trash that high. I mapped the closest approach of the river to the hills - only thirty meters. That's almost a cliff. South of that spot the hills retreat to a distance of 400 meters - that's a lot of flat land. That's where I started seeing the plastic that had washed down from Atlanta - not sure why it would start to appear there. Probably has something to do with the topography.
The riverside vegetation is thick in his area, which means that I spent quite a bit of time poking around. There is always a rise of land at the bank, followed by a depression and then another rise of land. All very subtle. Getting the contours straight is very important for an orienteering map. The small changes are what will make the map interesting.
Found the first spot where I could actually get down to the water. Usually the bank is so steep and muddy that the only way to get down is to fall. A small gully (which I mapped) gave me the opportunity to get down without getting covered in mud. The view upstream and downstream.
That's the last of the river pictures until I finish the rest of this page. Now I need to work my way south through some logged areas to the big powerline, while skirting the beaver pond. I'm curious to see how extensive the beaver swamp is.
I have proof that the river floods the park. Found lots of plastic trash congregating in this section. The river bank is two contours high (six meters), so that's a pretty good flood that can deposit trash that high. I mapped the closest approach of the river to the hills - only thirty meters. That's almost a cliff. South of that spot the hills retreat to a distance of 400 meters - that's a lot of flat land. That's where I started seeing the plastic that had washed down from Atlanta - not sure why it would start to appear there. Probably has something to do with the topography.
The riverside vegetation is thick in his area, which means that I spent quite a bit of time poking around. There is always a rise of land at the bank, followed by a depression and then another rise of land. All very subtle. Getting the contours straight is very important for an orienteering map. The small changes are what will make the map interesting.
Found the first spot where I could actually get down to the water. Usually the bank is so steep and muddy that the only way to get down is to fall. A small gully (which I mapped) gave me the opportunity to get down without getting covered in mud. The view upstream and downstream.
That's the last of the river pictures until I finish the rest of this page. Now I need to work my way south through some logged areas to the big powerline, while skirting the beaver pond. I'm curious to see how extensive the beaver swamp is.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
A new page!
I started a new page this weekend - a purely arbitrary milestone, but I take what I can get to keep my spirits up. This is actually the third page of map. Since the base map is at a large scale each page doesn't cover much territory - still it's great to start a new page. That also means I have a lot of drafting to do with the just-retired page.
I finished the ld page in 4.5 hours on Saturday. Last weekend I had found an aluminum tree stand. I have found lots of tree stands, but they are all wooden and in danger of falling at any minute. This one was different, a modern aluminum stand padlocked to a tree. Not sure how long it had been there, since hunting season is long over. Or maybe it's for this fall? Anyway, it's illegal now that the area is a State Park, so I notified my contact with the DNR and he asked me to send him the GPS coordinates. I drifted by there on Saturday and it was gone! How odd. Anyway, the DNR still wants to know where it was so they can check on the area later.
I finally mapped the old house - I'm pretty sure that the cabin in the pines was a sharecrop cabin for this house. It has not survived - it's a total ruin, except for the well house right next to it.
Sunday I started a new area. My first deliverable for the orienteering club is the area north of the big powerline and as far west as the southwest bend in the big powerline. Rather than map up into the bend of the river now I decided to finish the area west of the big inholding. Followed the boundary south for 900 meters to the powerline, then west on the powerline. Found a logging road that I hoped would serve as a western boundary, but it ended up making an S curve through the new area. I predict that I will spend hours walking this road to get access to the area to map it. I am moving farther and farther away from the parking spot.
Found the first beaver dam - the area behind it is 250 meters wide and 900 meters long. I hope it's not all flooded. Also found the largest Beech tree I have ever found while mapping, and I have seen some big trees. It is in a sheltered spot almost on the bank of the river.
I finished the ld page in 4.5 hours on Saturday. Last weekend I had found an aluminum tree stand. I have found lots of tree stands, but they are all wooden and in danger of falling at any minute. This one was different, a modern aluminum stand padlocked to a tree. Not sure how long it had been there, since hunting season is long over. Or maybe it's for this fall? Anyway, it's illegal now that the area is a State Park, so I notified my contact with the DNR and he asked me to send him the GPS coordinates. I drifted by there on Saturday and it was gone! How odd. Anyway, the DNR still wants to know where it was so they can check on the area later.
I finally mapped the old house - I'm pretty sure that the cabin in the pines was a sharecrop cabin for this house. It has not survived - it's a total ruin, except for the well house right next to it.
Sunday I started a new area. My first deliverable for the orienteering club is the area north of the big powerline and as far west as the southwest bend in the big powerline. Rather than map up into the bend of the river now I decided to finish the area west of the big inholding. Followed the boundary south for 900 meters to the powerline, then west on the powerline. Found a logging road that I hoped would serve as a western boundary, but it ended up making an S curve through the new area. I predict that I will spend hours walking this road to get access to the area to map it. I am moving farther and farther away from the parking spot.
Found the first beaver dam - the area behind it is 250 meters wide and 900 meters long. I hope it's not all flooded. Also found the largest Beech tree I have ever found while mapping, and I have seen some big trees. It is in a sheltered spot almost on the bank of the river.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Cabin in the Pines
Made an interesting find today. A small cabin, which I presume used to be a sharecropper cabin. It is extremely well preserved, probably because the tin roof is still intact. It's very well hidden. All it needs are a few floorboards and a new chimney and you could move in. Of course there's no power, but isn't that part of the charm? Here's a better picture of the whole cabin from the other side.
As far as mapping goes, I finished most of the area north of the meadows and as fareast as the corn combine. One more trip and this area should be done - then it's into the open fields in the bend of the river.
As far as mapping goes, I finished most of the area north of the meadows and as fareast as the corn combine. One more trip and this area should be done - then it's into the open fields in the bend of the river.
Mapping the "Meadows"
It only took about four hours. Most of the variety that I had seen when walking through this area before turned out to be too small to actually map. What's the smallest open area you can put on the map? I added a few very small ones, but most of this area of old logging I was forced to map in different shades of green. Now the map has every color of green, from white woods to light green to the darkest stuff I would not send my worst enemy into.
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