problem buying USGS 7.5 minute maps

i've been looking into buying a few different sets of USGS 7.5 minute maps for all of my local areas where i like to hike, climb, and ski. i've found on the USGS.gov site where to buy the maps individually but i was hoping to be able to select an area on a map and it would bring up whatever maps fall under that area. or even if i could select one map and it could give me the options of looking at adjacent maps to the north, south, east, and west. it's just been a real drag having to track down the map for one area, then spending another 20 minutes sorting through so many maps trying to find the next one over.

has anyone dealt with a similar problem and have any suggestions?

oh, and if it matters at all the areas i want to buy maps for are the catskills, and adirondacks in NY

There's several free services that let you look at the actual USGS maps, but if you want to scan each to see which you want to buy I really like the setup at Lists of John:

listsofjohn.com/PeakStats/s…

It's organized around peaks, not topos, so search for one of the peaks, then hit the "Click here for large Google Map - all peaks in this quad" - it'll bring up an outline of the border of that USGS and quick navigation to all the 7.5' topo's in each direction.

Mt Marcy Quad:
listsofjohn.com/PeakStats/Q…

If you didn't know, you can also download these maps free from the USGS.

-adam

At store.usgs.gov use the Map Locator.

If your in the Denver Area you can go to the USGS map center/store on the Denver Federal Center (6th and Kipling) Bldg 810. Maps are grouped as you stated (geographically)and the people that work there are pretty helpful and you can actually touch the maps.

T.L. Kushner wrote:i've been looking into buying a few different sets of USGS 7.5 minute maps for all of my local areas where i like to hike, climb, and ski. i've found on the USGS.gov site where to buy the maps individually but i was hoping to be able to select an area on a map and it would bring up whatever maps fall under that area. or even if i could select one map and it could give me the options of looking at adjacent maps to the north, south, east, and west. it's just been a real drag having to track down the map for one area, then spending another 20 minutes sorting through so many maps trying to find the next one over. has anyone dealt with a similar problem and have any suggestions? oh, and if it matters at all the areas i want to buy maps for are the catskills, and adirondacks in NY

Any respectable map store or large university library should have large maps (state size) with a grid that directs you to all of the maps that make up that grid. So if you find the one map you want, you can see all the others around it. Most stores have this large grid map easily accessible (i.e. on the table). Hope that helps!

National Geographic has a great topo software for $50 per state. The software features updated versions of the usgs 7.5 minute maps that you can then print out from home. It's a really cool software. You can do elevation profiles too. Well worth the money if you got a descent printer

National Geographic Topo! for New York