Over the past month, I have been mapping southern Indiana’s trails and parks. My goal was to improve the map experience for geocachers in Indiana by working to display trails & park maps on geocaching.com’s maps. I’ve mapped all of the City of Bloomington and Monroe County parks, the larger parks in Indianapolis, and most of the state parks, forests, and state recreation areas in southern Indiana. I am hoping that as I work on improving the park maps that other geocachers in the area will join me in mapping common locations that we visit while geocaching. GeoWoodstock is being held in southern Indiana this year, so we have a large volume of geocachers from other areas of the world planning their geocaching adventures in southern Indiana for Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully, as they browse the map for parks and populated geocaching areas, they will notice the lovely maps and want to have similar awesome maps in their home state!

I have been keeping track in a spreadsheet as to which parks I have been working on, the other parks left to map in southern Indiana, and noting which trails I need to find GPX data for. I am using park maps to identify where parking, shelters, playgrounds, restrooms, etc are located and adding them to the map. I have been getting the trail data from friends who hike frequently.

Here’s a list of most of the locations that I have mapped in the past month:

Bloomington Area Parks

• Wapehani
• Leonard Springs Nature Park
• All other City of Bloomington (20+)
• Monroe County Park District (Jackson Creek Park, Karst Farm, & Flatwoods)

State Parks, Forests, and Recreation Areas

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