Show HN: Topophi.com – find trails, camps, photos of national forests and parks(topophi.com)
topophi.com
Show HN: Topophi.com – find trails, camps, photos of national forests and parks
https://www.topophi.com/?origin=hackernews
6 comments
Really cool. Just posted this to Product Hunt :)
http://www.producthunt.com/tech/topophi
Pretty cool. I typed "Illinois" into the search bar and I was directed to a page about Angeles National Forest, you might want to look into that.
Topophi stack for those curious:
Front end: martyjs (https://github.com/martyjs/marty)
Back end: nodejs koa webserver (https://github.com/koajs/koa)
DB: postgresql
Devops: Docker and Tutum for deployment on AWS
Martyjs is a flux framework that allowed us to easily write isomorphic javascript. We were able to get React to render all pages serverside. The stores would get serialized and sent to the client where the client would then boostrap itself.
I would use this. How long until the northeast states become available? Needs state/local parks to really be useful, though.
The hardest part for us has been accumulating data and trying to make it coherent. A problem with a lot of the East coast in general is the data is controlled by the states and each state has multiple districts that manage the parks.
Unfortunately we aren't able to commit to anything meaningful other than to say, we are working on data every day.
Right now most of what you'll see is Federal lands.
Unfortunately we aren't able to commit to anything meaningful other than to say, we are working on data every day.
Right now most of what you'll see is Federal lands.
For me, the state and sub-agency control of information about their own parks is what makes it valuable to me. While planning a recent week camping in CO and WY, I learned that most of the aggregated information I was finding from general hiking sites (even stuff like trails.com) was outdated. Surprisingly, the National Forest Service sites ("optimized for IE 6!") contained information accurate to a few weeks.
I'm also a little thrown off by Topiphi's heavy focus on "Permits" on each National Park page. For every park I'm trying, it points me to the "America the Beautiful" annual pass. Sure, while that pass would get me through the entrance gates, there are numerous other one-day, one-week, senior citizen and corporate passes that also given me access to the park. The majority of casual users aren't likely to be looking to buy each family member an $80 NPS annual pass, so I'd like to see more info there.
I'm also a little thrown off by Topiphi's heavy focus on "Permits" on each National Park page. For every park I'm trying, it points me to the "America the Beautiful" annual pass. Sure, while that pass would get me through the entrance gates, there are numerous other one-day, one-week, senior citizen and corporate passes that also given me access to the park. The majority of casual users aren't likely to be looking to buy each family member an $80 NPS annual pass, so I'd like to see more info there.
Working on this the past couple months there has definitely been a lot of conflict over what is valuable or not valuable.
As a backpacker myself, the most frustrating part was not knowing where to start looking for this stuff. When we started using topophi ourselves to find the rangers and forests we needed to check for regulations, thats when we thought, well maybe someone else will find this useful.
But back to your comment, totally agree, we need better information.
As a backpacker myself, the most frustrating part was not knowing where to start looking for this stuff. When we started using topophi ourselves to find the rangers and forests we needed to check for regulations, thats when we thought, well maybe someone else will find this useful.
But back to your comment, totally agree, we need better information.
How would one go about contributing to this with New Zealand data?
We do not yet have a way to accept and display user submitted data. That is one of the many things we will be working on next.
Going internationally is another challenge in and of itself and right now we have been focusing strictly on the US.
Send us an email at info at topophi.com and we'll talk.
Going internationally is another challenge in and of itself and right now we have been focusing strictly on the US.
Send us an email at info at topophi.com and we'll talk.
I confess that I don't have much curated data to share but have often thought about this, even from a safety perspective. I was in a serious storm once that tore my tent apart and I spent 48 hours in serious cold with little shelter - I later found out that there was a very large overhanging rock that provides great shelter less than 1km from where I had been. It's only a marginal feature so not worth including on maps but a potential lifesaver in certain circumstances.
A quick scan of your kind of site prior to heading into a certain catchment could result in less incidents and more people safely experiencing the outdoors and thus becoming more informed voters about our resources.
A quick scan of your kind of site prior to heading into a certain catchment could result in less incidents and more people safely experiencing the outdoors and thus becoming more informed voters about our resources.
Need the ability to search by zip code. I tried that and it didn't seem to work.