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

• Brown County State Park
• Cagles Mill Lake/Lieber State Recreation Area
• Cataract Falls State Recreation Area
• Charlestown State Park
• Clark State Forest
• Deam Lake State Recreation Area
• Hardy Lake State Recreation Area
• Harrison-Crawford State Forest
• Jackson-Washington State Forest
• Lincoln State Park
• McCormick’s Creek State Park
• Monroe Lake- Allen’s Creek State Recreation Area
• Monroe Late- Paynetown State Recreation Area
• Morgan-Monroe State Forest
• O’Bannon Woods State Park
• Owen-Putnam Forest
• Patoka Lake
• Shakamak State Park
• Spring Mill State Park
• Starve Hollow State Recreation Area
• Versailles State Park
• Yellowwood State Forest

Hoosier National Forest

• Celina Lake- Interpretive Trail
• Deam Wilderness
• Fork Ridge Trails
• Hardin Ridge Recreation Area
• Hemlock Cliffs
• Hickory Ridge Trails in Hoosier National Forest
• Knobstone Trail
• Mogan Ridge West & East
• Two Lakes Loop Trail

Parks in Indianapolis

• Eagle Creek Reservoir
• Southeastway Park
• South Westway Park

Other Parks

• Cedar Bluff Nature Preserve
• Muscatatuck County Park
• Silver Creek Community Park (GeoWoodstock Location)

Note, I may have miscategorized some of these parks in this blog post, but you get the idea..

I’m curious if anyone has suggestions for how to add “official” boundaries to parks? I know how to map them, but right now I’m estimated property lines based on key landmarks that are displayed in a park’s maps. I know that when I use Google Maps in Indiana and zoom in really far, I can see property lines. Of course we can’t trace Google’s data in OSM.