Bikepacking the Driftless Area

Posted by Bikeverywhere, March 27th, 2019 2 responses

The Driftless Area is a unique geologic feature of the upper Mississippi River. Four major glaciers passed through the upper Midwest in geologic time; flattening hills, filling in valleys and leveling the landscape, but none of them touched the Driftless Area of what is now SW Wisconsin, SE Minnesota and NE Iowa. The result is a highly dissected land of ridges, valleys, trout streams and rivers. The landscape is dotted with small family farms, wooded hillsides and rural communities.

This bike tour takes it all in with a mix of paved and gravel roads, long ascents to ridges followed by equally long descents into valleys. It crosses the Mississippi River twice and passes Amish farms, bakeries and buggies. Average daily distance is 50 miles, but with numerous campgrounds, hotels and B&Bs along the way, the options for changing up the daily ride are endless. You will be challenged physically by the hills and rewarded endlessly by the scenery and small town friendliness.

Driftless Area Bikepacking

Filed under: Bikeverywhere News

2 Comments to “Bikepacking the Driftless Area”

  1. Guido Says:
    April 11th, 2019 at 2:21 pm

    Hi Shidell, first of all congratulations for your maps, I really like them. I downloaded your Driftless area bikepacking tour map and I went thru something I never seen before. I am talking about that sort of dashboard were it’s possible to select the different maps inside the folder. That’s very neat and opens new venues of using pdf maps. Could you tell me what program do you use or guide me to where I can learn the technique? Thank you for your attention.

  2. Doug Shidell Says:
    April 11th, 2019 at 2:54 pm

    Hello Guido,
    This is a new feature that Avenza Maps offers its vendors. They started offering map bundles several years ago, but the bundles were just a group of maps in a single download. Now, as a vendor, I can check the “Collections” button to create the dashboard that you saw. If you are an Avenza vendor, you have the same option. It doesn’t matter which software you use to develop the maps. If Avenza accepts them, you can create a bundle and check the Collections option. I’m also very excited about this feature. As you said, it opens up a lot of possibilities.

    To my knowledge, however, the feature is not offered as a feature for Map Store buyers. It’s a feature just for vendors.
    I hope this helps.
    Doug