Natural Atlas is a detailed outdoor mapping platform built through crowd sourcing by the people who explore and use the outdoors. Their goal is to provide tools and maps for navigating and learning about the outdoor world.
Their platform is built on the idea that a local who goes out hiking on their free time is going to know vastly more about the land than a single source ever could. Natural Atlas creates a platform where these hikers’ experiences and their intricate details that are most accurate and interesting can be shared with the wider community to create more accurate mapping and navigation. Knowing where a tiny spring is, or a bush of wild raspberries, can sometimes make the greatest difference in a trip, and Natural Atlas provides this kind of detail. The company is also planning future updates that will specifically cater towards more intricate and detailed specifics.
Outdoor maps and information gets stale fast because mother nature puts in and takes out log crossings every season, which means that traditional mapping services often can’t reflect conditions on the ground. Useful and important areas for hikers such as fire pits come and go, and knowledge of where to find ideal rest locations can be crucial for outdoor explorers. Natural Atlas is the fix for the painstaking hours that can be spent switching between maps and guide books, as they offer a great map combined with content on everything on the map that can be searched and easily browsed.
Written by: Christopher Ewell, AGS on July 10, 2015