Forest Maps

Forest Visitor Maps, National Forest Atlas, and Wilderness Maps

These maps are available for purchase at the U.S. Geological Survey Store, many Forest & Grassland Offices in the region and other retail outlets. Many Forest Visitor Maps are also available for purchase as georeferenced PDFs on Avenza, for use on mobile devices.

• Forest Visitor Maps for each national forest and grassland provide forest-wide information on attractions, facilities, services, and opportunities.
• National Forest Atlases are full color atlases, containing 8.5-inch by 11-inch topographic quadrangle maps at 1 inch to the mile scale and are available for many of the forests in California.
• Wilderness Maps are topographic maps that show natural features such as mountains, valleys, plains, lakes, rivers, and vegetation using contour lines depicting elevation gain or loss. Each map covers all or part of one wilderness area and the scale is generally 1 inch per mile (1:63,360).

Maps and books on hiking, mountain biking, camping, fishing and other topics are for sale at Los Padres NF Headquarters, District Offices and Visitor Centers; Wheeler Gorge and the Big Sur Multi-Agency Sales are through the Los Padres Forest Association.

In general, forest visitor and other kinds of maps can be purchased at most Los Padres National Forest Offices.

Digital Maps for Mobile Devices

The Avenza Maps Mobile App, developed by Avenza Systems Inc., is available as a free download from iTunes and the Android Play Store. The app provides access to Forest Service maps, such as motor-vehicle-use maps, which are free while pages from national forest atlases are 99 cents and forest visitor maps are $4.99. Prices are pending for other agency maps.

Other Maps

Topographic Maps

• FSTopo is the Forest Service series of large scale topographic maps. FSTopo maps are 7.5 minute, 1:24,000-scale over the conterminous United States, and 15 minute X 20-22.5 minute, 1:63,360-scale over Alaska. These maps are available for download at Forest Service Topography Maps.

Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUM)

The Motor Vehicle Use Map displays National Forest System routes (roads and trails) or areas designated open to motorized travel. The Motor Vehicle Use Map also displays uses allowed by vehicle class (highway-legal vehicles, vehicles less than 50 inches wide and motorcycles), and seasonal allowances.

• Access our MVUMs