Navigation in National Forests with Motor Vehicle Use Maps

[LOEBMWR Admin]

Very Cool! Thanks for sharing

[SandyBallard]

I recently discovered that the Forest Service publishes Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUMs) for all the National Forests. For each Forest, these maps define all the roads in the Forest, what sorts of vehicles are allowed on the road, and whether or not dispersed camping is allowed adjacent to the road. Here is a link: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/cibola/maps-pubs/?width=full&cid=FSEPRD586426.

Best of all, these maps are available digitally for free and can be downloaded to your smart phone and then accessed even without a cell phone connection. To do that, you need a free mapping app for your IOS or Android phone called Avenza (https://www.avenzamaps.com/maps/search.html?query=&location_mode=suggest_input&location=Albuquerque%2C%20New%20Mexico%2C%20United%20States&sort=relevance&price_max=&page=0&debug=&current_map_id=&location_box=35.9845%2C-105.7511%2C34.1845%2C-107.5511&vendor_ids=&category_ids=&merge_mode=v4&debug_ids=).

The app is free, and the digital MVUMs are free. Avenza has tons of other maps available as well, some free, some not. I think you can access digital BDR maps using their app, but I have not tried it.
Together, these make a very helpful tool for navigating in a National Forest. On the screenshot from my phone below, I dropped a red pin at a road intersection and my location at the time was represented with a blue dot. The latitude and logitude of the location at the center of the gray circle is displayed at the bottom of the screen. There are simple tools for finding the distance and direction from your current location to the location of any pin dropped on the map.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with this stuff. Check it out.
Sandy