Product Description

The first choice of outdoors enthusiasts. Beautiful, detailed, large-format maps of every state. Perfect for home and office reference, and a must for all your vehicles. Gazetteer information may include: campgrounds, attractions, historic sites & museums, recreation areas, trails, freshwater fishing site & boat launches, canoe trips or scenic drives. Categories vary by state

Product Details

• Size: Alaska Atlas
• Brand: Alpen
• Published on: 2004-01-01
• Released on: 2004-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 156 pages

About the Author
DeLorme has been directly responsible for many of the major technological advances made in the mapping industry over the past 30 years.

Customer Reviews

Excellent resource within its limitations
This atlas appeared as a "recommended item" for me by Amazon.com. I noticed I had a dog-eared, rumpled copy next to my chair and thought I'd give it an honest review.

First of all, what it ISN'T. The topographic maps certainly don't contain "unbeatable detail." For example, right now I'm planning a trip in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. In that area of the state, the map scale is 1:1,400,000, where 1 inch represents about 22 miles! Not much detail available on that scale.

The regions most people are traveling in, however, are on a much more detailed scale of 1:300,000, where 1 inch = 4.8 miles.
These maps cover the areas where most people live and hunt and fish and backpack and boat in Alaska. (For comparison, the most commonly used topographic maps obtained elsewhere are at a scale of 1:24:000 for most of the U.S. and 1:63,360 for Alaska.)

The Atlas IS an invaluable reference for planning and quick reference. I try to keep mine handy, and reference it very often. It is much, much faster and easier than trying to download or find individual topo maps.

There's a very handy map index on the back, showing each map's page and area. On the second page there's a two page fold-out relief map, in color, showing Alaska's mountain ranges, rivers, etc. There's a map legend inside the front cover, and a Table of Contents on page one, and the back. There are other interesting and useful features like the average temperatures and daylight hours from Nome to Anchorage to Juneau.

This Atlas is similar to a compact camera: it may not have quite as many features, but it's handiness often makes it even more useful.

A Good Starting Point for Planning
The sheer size of Alaska tends to defeat what would otherwise be an unbeatable map collection for most states in the lower 48. A second challenge is the very thin transportation infrastructure in Alaska; huge areas of the state are not on the limited road network and can be reached in a timely manner only by air. Enormous swaths of wilderness have no transportation network at all.

The DeLorme "Alaska Atlas and Gazetteer" is an excellent resource for trip planning. Used in conjunction with the most recent "Milepost", the average travelor can reach any point in the state accessible by road and plan entry into many other areas. However, the scale of the maps is insufficient for detailed off-road route planning; deep country hikers, hunters, and fishermen are advised to seek more specialized map products.

This Atlas is highly recommended to the traveler in Alaska looking for a compact map resource. It is also a good starting point for planning trips in determining where more detailed map products will be needed.

The Alaska Gazetteer needs an Alaska road mileage chart.
Good book, but a useful feature would be a road mileage chart for those Alaska cities and towns which are connected to the road system. For instance it is very difficult using the Gazetteer to determine the highway mileage from Anchorage to Talkeetna. A simple chart similar to the one you have for more far-flung destinations like Seattle etc., would be a welcome addition to the Gazetteer.