The Mapping Specialist

Vol XIII, No. 1 - Summer 2005

Contents | In Focus | Profile | The Back Page

IN FOCUS
Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail

The Plan

Do you enjoy a good story?  Then come visit the Ice Age National Scenic Trail (IAT), a linear park winding 1,000 miles over glacial features in Wisconsin.  The unique story of the most recent continental glaciers in North America - about 15,000 years ago - is now being told through the efforts of both private and public resources...and thousands of volunteers.  The IAT extends from Potawatomi State Park on the Door Peninsula, through Kettle Moraine State Forest, and then meanders across the Wisconsin River valley, terminating in Interstate State Park on the St. Croix River.

Originally the idea of Ray Zillmer, a Milwaukee lawyer and avid hiker, the IAT has evolved from Zillmer's founding in 1958 of the Ice Age Park & Trail Foundation to its present status as a National Scenic Trail, established in 1980 by Act of Congress.

Zillmer's fondness for the glacial landscape of southeastern Wisconsin impassioned him to convince the National Park Service to establish a long narrow strip for outdoor recreation that would be used "by millions more people than use the more remote national parks." Its linear nature connects the trail to cities, towns, and neighborhoods much as a highway links the nation's commercial landscape.  Unlike a more famous trail, the Appalachian Trail, the IAT intersects communities and is totally contained in one state.  In fact, more than 20 million people live within 100 miles of a trail segment.

Zillmer knew that building the trail would pose many challenges.  Funding, a continuing issue, and the trail's serpent-like nature would be major hurdles, especially with regard to land acquisition.  The trail winds through both private and public lands.  To be continuous, parcels need to be spliced together.  To date, about 600 miles have been completed mostly due to the trail foundation's dedicated volunteers (pictured above).

These generous folks construct new trail segments, maintain older segments, and raise funds to buy new parcels.  Unlike the Appalachian Trail, land for the IAT cannot be purchased by the National Park Service.  This frustrates Drew Hanson, trailway director.  He notes that this is an enormous conservation, recreation, and education project.  But Drew beams when a new segment is completed.  And, he has never-ending praise for the many volunteers who are helping fulfill Zillmer's dream.

If you choose to hike the trail, a cross-section of the Midwest will be painted before you.  Glacial topography, such as moraines and eskers, is abundant as are prairies and marsh land.  Plus the trails skirt more than 200 named lakes and many other small lakes and ponds.  The IAT is primarily a foot path, though several segments are on rail-trails that allow biking and in-line skating.  In winter, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing enthusiasts can enjoy the varied landscape.  An extra bonus is wildlife - deer, turkey, bald eagles, red-headed woodpeckers, and the occasional gray wolf or great gray owl.  Camping, both campsite and primitive, is permitted in some areas though there are restrictions.  More information can be obtained by calling the trail foundation office at 800.227.0046.

The Action

Mapping Specialists got involved with the IAPTF when Drew called to inquire about producing an atlas of the trail.  MSL had previously produced a series of large exhibit maps of the trail for the local office of the National Park Service that are displayed at various trailheads throughout the state.  Drew had provided the GIS data of the trail for those products.  This atlas in turn was envisioned to be used in conjunction with the Ice Age Trail Companion Guide, a detailed handbook that describes the entire thousand-mile trail.

Because of the evolving nature of the trail itself (the location has changed as various parcels have been acquired), the initial design decisions focused on what portion of the trail to portray - completed segments and/or the full-proposed route.  We finally decided to layout and number the atlas pages to cover the entire trail, but only produce for the atlas those pages that actually contain completed segments of the IAT.  This proved to be a fortuitous decision, because in the course of the production, another trail segment was completed near the Wisconsin River, and we were able to efficiently add that page to the atlas in its proper sequence.

We chose a scale of 1:48,000 as large enough to provide hikers with enough detail about the land, but still small enough to cover the entire trail in 111 letter-size pages, so that the atlas would not become too unwieldy to use outdoors.  In the end, 72 pages were actually produced that cover every segment completed to date.

Since the story of the Ice Age is written in the topography, priority was given to adding shaded relief to these color maps.  We felt that this 3-D look gave a more immediate impression of the topography, and a less cluttered appearance than using contour lines, as had been done in a previous map series.  Drew provided digital elevation models (DEMs) of Wisconsin to build the relief.  Considering that the state's elevation ranges only 1,372 feet - Lake Michigan at 579 feet to Timms Hill at 1,951 feet - the relief was given enough exaggeration to portray typical glacial forms such as eskers, kettles, and drumlins clearly.

A clean design was developed to emphasize the trail and points of interest along it, including historic and recreation sites, parking, camping, toilets and showers - all features that would be important to users.  And because the route traverses through a variety of properties - private landowners who have allowed access, state and national forests, shared trails - the maps needed to show these distinctions with unique color fills.

Indeed, it was with the hiker in mind that guided our decisions about what to show.  For example, while showing the public road network, only those roads that intersected or offered access to the trail were named, as well as those roads that served as "connectors" between completed sections of the trail.  Copier tests were conducted to see how these maps would reproduce in black and white, with the thought in mind that users might want to copy pages for trail use.

This atlas project was truly in keeping with the spirit of the foundation itself.  As each atlas page was completed, color proofs were sent out to the appropriate local volunteer chapter (24 in all) that maintains a specific portion of the trail.  Hence, the maps were reviewed by those most familiar with the trail itself, the volunteers.  With such enthusiasm within the foundation, one can envision the trail evolving toward completion, and the mapping of it keeping pace.  To purchase a copy of the atlas, see www.iceagetrail.org.

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