Is there any tips for finding high alpine basins when looking at maps or google earth

[Jordan guyer]

I would like to hunt mule deer in the high counrty with archery gear in wyoming and colorado. I am having a hard time trying to pick a spot to go. Is there any tips to find the high alpine basins by looking at maps and google earth?

 

[Craig Van Arsdale]

Use the arrows in the upper right hand corner to change your angle of view. after Awhile you will get the hang of spotting them and determining if the terrain is what you would like or not.

 

[robby denning]

As Craig says above, you need to tip your screen if you haven't already, then...

For Western Wyoming, look at the tops of the mountain ranges above about 7500 feet. Where the spruce/lodgepole starts to thin out and just become strips of timber and is steep, you are close enough.

For Coloraodo, you are usually looking for country above 10,500 feet and is often more open than Wyoming.

 

[larryschwartz]

Or, learn to read a topo map and use those. There are a couple of threads on here showing how to add topo map layers to Google Earth.

 

[Alexander4]

Anyone have a quick link to those topo/earth laying instructions?

 

[RosinBag]

Google earth can be turned in every direction possible so you can see where the basins are and what your viewpoint is from a specific point in 360 degrees. You need a three click mouse and it will turn into a 3d view

 

[armyjoe]

Google Earth is a hunters best friend but you need to just mess around with it until you are comfortable with the different views to get the results your looking for from it. Here is a link for all maps including topos and its free.. http://mapper.acme.com/

 

[tradair1980]

Acme mapper is a killer tool to use has everything you need . The only thing I.wish it would.do is load up.with.garmins stuff the way Google earth does...Other than that its sweet !

 

[OR Archer]

also check out www.flashearth.com the images are much clearer and more up to date than google earth. you cant rotate them into a 3d view like google earth but you can use both in conjunction with each other to get a good clear image of an area.

 

[bigeasygator]

I went on my first high country mule deer hunt this year and had the same questions. The following is something I wrote up documenting my process. It seemed to work pretty well as I was able to find deer where I'd thought they'd be...

There are some great tools out there to get a handle on where to hunt without ever leaving your home. Google Earth, topo maps, satellite imagery, etc will all help you find areas that look good to hunt. But for someone who has only a limited amount of time in the mountains, and who has never really scouted the mountains from home, this can be a daunting task. What does a basin look like? How do I know this basin will hold deer? What would make one basin better than another? These are questions running through my head...it also doesn't help that often times Google Earth uses imagery from different times of the year...so finding that lush, green summer basin isn't always a guarantee.

To narrow down where I wanted to focus, I started with a topo map of what seems to be the "core" area of my hunting unit.

Knowing that I wanted to focus on the "high country", I needed a way to highlight areas that were in that 11,000-12,000' range and above...and that's just what I did. I took two highlighters and brought out the inner 5-year old in me. On my topomap (that I found online off of a random website), the 3,500 meter line showed up as a bolder line than the other elevation contour lines. Same with the 3,750 meter line. As 3,500 meters and 3,750 meters correlate to 11,483' and 12,303' respectively, I wanted to shade only those areas to give me an idea where to focus. I started by outlining those contour lines on the map.

The next step was shading in the map. I shaded the area between 3,500 meters and 3,750 meters blue and areas above 3,750 meters pink. I used two colors to try and break it up and see where really high steep areas were. The plan will likely be to hunt high but focus the search in the areas at the convergence of the pink and blue lines (12,303'). Here's the map shaded in.

You'll notice now that the basins really jump out at you, as do passes (which are essentially at the heads of drainages and basins). With this information, I've circled some of what appear to be the more promising basins to focus my time.

I then spent some time on Google Earth familiarizing myself with those shaded in areas and picked a spot to hunt based on the combination of using all of these tools. Hope this helped some.

 

[flatlander51]

BGater your kitchen table must look a lot like mine in the off season.lol!!!

 

[bigeasygator]

It can get bad haha but that sheet is actually an 8x11 sheet of paper...and I did that at work! Shhhhh haha

 

[Foldem]

Just remember, it's a whole lot steeper and harder in real life than it looks on GE!

 

[BuckSnort]

Just remember, it's a whole lot steeper and harder in real life than it looks on GE!

That's the truth!

 

[bigeasygator]

Just remember, it's a whole lot steeper and harder in real life than it looks on GE!

Understatement.

 

[Jelf]

Instead of loading topo maps into Google Earth you could simply use Gmap4 to surf topos and aerials (just like ACME Mapper) and then when you want to check out a spot with Google Earth you click the button in the upper right corner of the map and select 'Earth'. Doing that starts the Google Earth browser plugin. You can then tilt/rotate the view and generally 'fly' around just like you do if you start the Google Earth program.

Go ahead and try it. This link displays a high resolution topo map for a random spot in the Shoshone National Forest west of Cody, WY.
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?ll=44.561334,-109.441853&t=t4&z=14&hillshade=18

If you would like to know more about Gmap4 please see:

Gmap4 default map: http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php

Gmap4 homepage: http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.html

Joseph, the Gmap4 guy

 

[LoneStar]

thanks for the write up bigeasygator and thanks for the great map links Jelf!

 

[jballa34]

How do you determine land ownership (private vs public)?

Sorry if this is an ignorant question.

 

[fillthefreezer]

How do you determine land ownership (private vs public)?

Sorry if this is an ignorant question.

huntinggpsmaps makes a landownership overlay but typically areas i hunt are wilderness so youre MILES from private prop.

 

[WyoBowhunter21]

I learned a lot from this thread. I love the highlighting idea on the topo!