Comic. [Small panel overlaying large panel.] PERSON 1: What’s up with this weird landscape? PERSON 2 with ponytail: Oh, it was caused by… [Large panel is map of the United States with with red overlays denoting landscape phenomena. Mega-floods in the northwest, a plate tectonics speedrun on the west coast, volcanoes next to the west coast, water and time in the southwest, geology in the west, a supervolcano within the west, glaciers in the north, farming in the middle, rivers in the mideast, geology in between rivers and farming, ??? toward the northeast, farming on the east coast, continents colliding next to the east coast, ongoing disputes between limestone and water in the south of Florida, volcanoes in Hawaii, geology in Alaska with volcanoes and glaciers below.]

Landscape Features

xkcd.com/3221/

I could not beat it, but I'm good with getting close.

Bus McGall?

One of the stranger peak names I’ve ever come across. Bus McGall??? What’s going on here, California?

Let's keep the national park anniversaries rolling since we've got maps to show off! On this day in 1919, Zion became Utah's first national park. The landscape map from Raven's new Parklands series really shows off the dazzling mix of bare rock and forested highlands that set Zion apart.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 18 - Out of This World

I made you a quiz. Seven geographic names from around the US, each representing one of our planetary neighbors. Can you match the planet to the numbered location on the map?

Returning to Wonderland: the 2nd Edition of the Yellowstone & Grand Teton Nationa... - Chaney Swiney YouTube video by NACIS

Wanna watch me talk about the 2nd edition of Benchmark's Yellowstone & Grand Teton atlas? Of course you do! It's 19 minutes of non-stop action. youtu.be/QuPoBFEzy4Y?...

Come back for Day 23 when the theme is "Process" because I've got a screen recording of building this one. Sped up, of course. Ten minutes of mapping condensed into 60 seconds of non-stop action.

It doesn't happen often, but that's twice now in the three years since we've been in NC. We missed it the first time around, though, cuz that was the night our daughter was born. Couldn't get any views out the hospital window!

The topography of Glacier Peak and its surroundings Shaded relief created using Eduard Chaney Swiney #30DayMapChallenge, 2025

#30DayMapChallenge Day 13: 10 Minute Map

I will always default to shaded relief and mountains, so this one was an easy idea: make a beautiful, unlabeled map using Eduard. I wasted almost a quarter of my 10 minutes trying to pick some mountains. Glacier Peak worked out in the end.

On this day in 1971, Arches became a national park, so of course that means it's time to celebrate with a map! This is the landscape version of the park from Raven's new Parklands series. Like the Canyonlands map I shared before, this color is all derived from some heavily processed aerial imagery.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 12: Map from 2125

What if we just intentionally misread it as "Map from 21º, 25º" and then make all four variants?

A pink glow diffuses across the sky at the bottom of the frame, fading to a dark blue with pinpricks of starlight at the top. Tree branches reach into the image from all directions.

Aurora in Asheville! Missed it 18 months ago, but not this time.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 11 - Minimal Map

Made this series a while ago, simple views of lakes around Central Oregon. Tough to pick a favorite, but I sure do love Sparks Lake. I like the understated bathymetric shading and the faint contour lines on land. And the lake stats. Love some lake stats.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 10 - Air

One of my favorite pages to build for Benchmark's Alaska Atlas was this page all about transportation in the state. A big focus of the map and guide was regular air service to the more remote communities, showing all the airports and estimates of flight durations.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 9 - Analog

I've never done much in the way of hand-drawn maps, but there was a time when I was trying to insert them into my notebooks where I was recording different adventures. Here's two from a winter camping trip at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Playing catch up on the #30DayMapChallenge with some pre-existing maps to fit the themes...

8 - Urban
I work on a lot of smaller scale maps with less urban focus. Here's two looks at some newer Raven maps: Minnesota and Japan. We went with red for built-up areas in Japan but chose gray for MN.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 7: Accessibility

I like the idea of remote spots: the points furthest from a road in a given area. A few years ago, I figured out what I think that point is in TN ahead of a trip on the AT through the Smokies. Trip got cancelled, but the spot's still out there...

#30DayMapChallenge Day 6: Dimensions

Why not make a new Peakscape and lean into the dimension of depth? This is the first that isn't built only using a DEM. There's elevation data in there for the middleground and the La Sal Mtns, but Delicate Arch is pulled from one of my photos. What a landscape!

For the two red rock versions, the colors on the landscape are derived from some extremely processed aerial imagery. For the greener and cooler mountain landscapes, it's a more straightforward use of land cover data. Had to tailor the approach to each park on its own to get the look right.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 5: Earth

Repurposing some maps *and* doing some shameless self-promotion here. These are crops from the shaded relief for the new Parklands prints from Raven. Cover the bottom left corner if you want to try guessing the park just from the terrain!

See the full lineup here.

I did something like this for the trees on the Hill while I was at UT! Now I gotta see if I can find that file somewhere...

Gold Cross Peak 3399

I just misread this as "Cold Gross Peak" and now I really wish that was its name.

Bare-faced Go-away-bird - eBird Unusual gray turaco with a bushy crest and a mostly white head and breast. Found in moist savanna, woodland, shrubby cultivation, and gardens. Usually in small groups. Loud and vocal. The calls are a single hollow “khweow” and a maniacal series of cackles and whines given by multiple birds in chorus. Similar in shape to White-bellied Go-away-bird and Eastern Plantain-eater, but easily separated by the white collar and lack of white in the wings and tail.

Looking through checklists from a friend's trip report on eBird and this is my new favorite bird name: ebird.org/species/bfgb...

#30DayMapChallenge Day 4: My Data

The latest update to my county map, my long term project tracking every county I've ever been in. Only two new ones of late, down on the NC coast around Wilmington. Closing in on 40% overall, and if I could get to Asotin County, WA I'd have three states filled in.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 3: Polygons

I am a sucker for good place names, and I will use them to bend a category to my will. Here are four selected summits around the US with polygonal names.

Graphic showing simple line maps of six backpacking trips with orange dots showing campsites.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 2: Lines

GPS tracks from 6 years of annual backpacking trips. Well… really 5 years. That 2024 line from the Smokies was just a big day trip, all we could squeeze in before Hurricane Helene. We thought we were picking the driest time of year, but it ended up being the wettest!

Mostly green map of Crater Lake National Park. The lake is blue, the other colors correspond to elevations with dark green for lowest and oranges and whites for highest.

It’s November, so it’s time for the #30DayMapChallenge!

1: Points
Took a low res DEM, turned it into points, colored them with a Raven-style hypso ramp, and made Crater Lake blue. Kinda looks like a Lite Brite.

Screenshot of a map with the label "Savory Mountain" in the middle.

Everything balances out. If there's a Big Rock Candy Mountain, then there's gotta be a...

Fall color in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mt Pisgah stands in the background, its color well past peak. In the foreground, a forested ridge shows off the reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn.

Orange and yellow trees blanket the mountainsides.

Rain and wind are here to steal the colors from the mountains, but I've got receipts of what was there before.

forested mountainside, ablaze in autumn hues of red, yellow, orange, and brown. A few green trees still dot the canopy.

Look at those colors. Autumn is moving downslope in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it's going quick.