Strava heat map showing where people walk in the Sierra.

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limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 31, 2018 - 04:24pm PT
Strava released their data to the public and there's a cool interactive map overlaying all of the tracks. Head to the "empty" zones for the FAs!

http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15.85/-118.46429/36.79956/gray/all

Cool things I've found so far:

-Popular paragliding spot off of highway 180 shows a giant web of loops.

-You can see a ton of ski lines going from Alta Peak down to the Pear Lake Ski hut in Sequoia.

-At least one person went to Palmer Cave :)

-Nobody goes to Tehipite


It's actually a global map so you can kill a lot of time playing with it.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2018 - 04:26pm PT
PS: Setting opacity to 100% on the left makes it easier to see tracks
zBrown

Ice climber
Jan 31, 2018 - 04:39pm PT
Now that's cool ... er hot...

Looking on an iPad gotta get on my pc to navigate mo bettah


OK, getting the hang of it

Wayno

Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
Jan 31, 2018 - 05:05pm PT
The Satellite overlay is more than 7 years old in some places.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2018 - 05:15pm PT
Ya and it's hard to see the single tracks with satellite, I've just been using the shaded relief.

Hey, someone peeked into the Gorge of Despair
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
Jan 31, 2018 - 06:17pm PT
whew! my haunts are almost devoid of activity.
Scole

Trad climber
Zapopan
Feb 1, 2018 - 12:13pm PT
Not a lot of traffic in Center Basin
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2018 - 01:32pm PT
whew! my haunts are almost devoid of activity.

Yup, I get a little bit of joy from finding places I've been with no lines :)
micronut

Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
Feb 1, 2018 - 03:01pm PT
I hope it doesn't show my lines travelled on paved roads when the Park was closed for the year......
briham89

Big Wall climber
santa cruz, ca
Feb 1, 2018 - 03:41pm PT
Who has Strava on all the time they're out? That's what I want to know....holy f*#k people. Did I go hike and climb today? Not sure I didn't Strava it?! I think I'm turning into an old man....
SC seagoat

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab, A sailboat, or some time zone
Feb 1, 2018 - 04:49pm PT
LOVED THIS MAP. THANKs!!!!

It showed me where some of the social trails go that aren’t on any trail maps and I’ve been wondering how far they go and what link ups to other trails in the area. This map made it quite clear. A bunch of new trails to check out.

Brian brings up a good point. I do usually wear a Garmin tracker when I’m biking or hiking and I think it links to Strava when I up load ( actually it does it automatically). As for climbing. I don’t wear it then because it’s kind of bulky but I don’t climb much anymore. It appears enough folks are making the Strava connect that at least trail areas in my fav spots are showing up...I really like that the unmapped trails are showing, which I guess means they’re not unmapped anymore. I guess local knowledge won’t be as important.
I especially love seeing the perfect red ovals that are school tracks. So neat.
Then again this is probably the same type of info that revealed a bunch of top secret military stuff. Oops.

Susan

looks easy from here

climber
Ben Lomond, CA
Feb 2, 2018 - 03:52pm PT
This is unreal! I'm a map addict. Thanks so much for sharing this link, limpingcrab.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2018 - 11:06am PT
Bump for any fellow map addicts that missed this.

Here's the same data overlayed on a topo map: http://marracci.github.io/maps/Leaflet_Strava#14/37.6865/-119.1763
Oplopanax

Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
Feb 5, 2018 - 11:58am PT
In my part of the world Strava shows the tiny reserve villages in the middle of the Great Bear Rainforest
RjBlake

climber
Feb 5, 2018 - 12:11pm PT
I've been playing with the Strava heatmap for years, it is great to see it getting wider attention as it is a very neat dataset, especially since the 2017 update.

You can, with some finagling, access the heatmap in Caltopo or Google Earth which allows for (in my opinion) some very cool visualizations. You can select different heatmaps based on user indicated activity type (All Activities, Cycling, Running, Snowsports and Watersports), which allows one to see differences in winter vs. summer routes (handy for figuring out what trails might be packed out when you're trying to get to ice climbs for instance, or figuring out where certain backcountry ski lines go).

I'm not very familiar with the Sierra so my examples are from further afield. As others have pointed out, this is not a comprehensive view of recreation activity, but rather of users with GPS devices inclined to track and upload activities.

Mount Washington (NH) Showing summer hiking activity (orange) and winter skiing activity (blue).

The Grand Canyon - hiking activities.

Half Dome

El Cap

New York City (Central Park)

Rainier

Mount Whitney
SC seagoat

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab, A sailboat, or some time zone
Feb 5, 2018 - 01:30pm PT
I’m a map addict also but did not know of this until the OP.

It’s awesome! Just like bad enemies, being able to find top secret military base stuff, I have been able to find a bunch of the “secret, locals only” trails around here.

One particular local trail, there was considerable lore about a secret “left hand fork”. Yes! Now I know where it goes. There’s also another top secret trail to some Indian Art that is best viewed on Summer Soltice. You could buy the directions for a couple bucks on the internet.
VOILA! I can find it now!

So much fun....so many new unknown trails!

Susan
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2018 - 03:13pm PT
That's so cool, Rj!

You bring up something I was wondering about, Susan. How many people used a GPS to track their route to a "secret" fishing spot or something only to have it now available to everyone? I'd be kinda annoyed to see some of my approach routes to fishing spots pop up on the internet. On the other hand, I'm happy to see other peoples' routes on my computer screen :)
looks easy from here

climber
Ben Lomond, CA
Feb 5, 2018 - 03:57pm PT
You can, with some finagling, access the heatmap in Caltopo or Google Earth
I use both those a lot, but unfortunately I'm not the most adept at maximizing their potential. Mind sharing your finagling for either or both? (All things being equal I'd prefer Google Earth, because Caltopo and Strava are fairly easy to just toggle between tabs.)
Mighty Hiker

climber
Outside the Asylum
Feb 5, 2018 - 04:01pm PT
The maps show only where people with "strava" hike in the Sierra. What percentage of the hiking population have them? Possibly those who like peace and quiet, and know places to find them, avoid the things.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2018 - 04:23pm PT
The maps show only where people with "strava" hike in the Sierra. What percentage of the hiking population have them? Possibly those who like peace and quiet, and know places to find them, avoid the things.

Very true, it's definitely not a complete log of all users. But, it's worth noting that Strava can link with phone apps, Garmin GPS units and a bunch of other stuff so the maps do include over a billion tracks.
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