Vibe-Winter-2425 - Flipbook - Page 38
picked up the phone, offered his unpaid
services to the AMC, and began work on
the project.
Garland, in his early 40s, helped the
AMC with satellite analysis in exchange
for a bunk at Pinkham Notch. He learned
the ins and outs through a partnership
with Dartmouth College. By the end of
the Northern Forest Inventory, Garland
had a lightbulb moment. It was the early
90s and the AMC’s three-color guidebook
maps were inaccurate and dull, made on
an offset press with acetate printmaking
techniques. Garland asked the breakthrough question: could digital mapping,
computer programming, and GPS replace
printmaking?
“I didn’t know,” Garland says. He
wrote a job description for it and pitched
the AMC. “I was a first-year employee
proposing a grandiose project with
technology I’d never used, and I’m going
to run around the mountains half the
time. They said they didn’t understand all
the details, to which I replied, ‘Me either.’”
Nevertheless, internal funding was
found, and Garland was given a chance.
Two years to produce new maps for the
26th edition White Mountain Guide. The
first step was finding a computer that
could handle the programs. Then, design
was still covering all of this ground. Combined with his pre-cartography hiking,
Garland traced all the trails in the White
Mountain Guidebook. And yes, the maps
were published on time.
I thought I’d test that. I ask Garland
what his favorite part about hiking was
and he says, “Every trail has a secret.
The wonder in hiking is discovering each
trail’s secret.”
The romantic nature of this quote
wasn’t lost on me; I dig further. I ask him
“I think of Larry as the ultimate craftsperson,
huddled over his desk with a dim lamp, making the
best product possible. He may not have been using
the ink and pen that Bradford Washburn used on his
maps, but he had the same dedication and passion.
He’s a part of that legendary group.”
the software architecture that would allow
GPS data from a handheld data-logger to
be sent to the computer. That data would
have to be edited on GIS, which then had
to be sent to a graphic design program.
Garland found a way, sparing no
detail. Using font size, he distinguished
peaks with 200 feet of prominence from
those without. He manually created each
of the feature symbols, think waterfalls
or caves, basing them on a National Park
standard key. He programmed the ability
to put them in the map. He didn’t just
change the tires; he created the wheel.
Not to mention, he was hiking a vast
number of these trails. He was given
some seasonal interns, who assisted with
the GPS. But for the most part, Garland
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what Great Gully’s secret is.
He pauses, thinking. He asks me to
affirm that Great Gully is in King Ravine.
“I seem to remember there being an
overhanging rock, and a weird move to
get around it,” Garland says, looking for
my approval. I shake my head in disbelief
in the fading afternoon.
“No family,” Garland says curtly. “I mean,
I have brothers and sisters, but I don’t
see them much. We’re dispersed and
independent.”
I ask the family question because I
couldn’t see how he had time for anything
else but mapping over the years. If you
looked up work-life balance in the dic-
tionary, Garland’s introverted existence
seemed to be the antonym. But after talking
to him, I realized he liked it that way.
“My passion is the data,” Garland
affirms. “My job description didn’t say,
‘Deploy to Maine for two weeks at a time
without connectivity.’ It’s what I thought
the job demanded.”
Garland’s talking about mapping
Baxter State Park. He used to go there for
two weeks and camp overnight, giving
the Park Rangers his 12-volt batteries to
charge at their front-country houses so
he could keep mapping.
Producing guidebook maps was just
half the job. When the AMC took a lead
role in the Bay Circuit Trail’s stewardship
in 2012, Garland was sent to write a
full comprehensive trail assessment. “I
helped serve the AMC trails, facilities, reservations, research, policy, and conservation departments with the work I did.”
AMC Swiss Army Knife, Chris Thayer,
recalls working with Garland on the
proposed Northern Pass Transmission
Line in the early 2010s. They were a
part of a pro bono advisory council
whose work was integral in the project
being turned down in 2018. Garland’s
role? Mapping and evaluating potential
aesthetic impacts.
“He was instrumental in creating
a striking visual analysis in 2012 that
showed 40,000 acres of woodland impact,”
Thayer says. “When Larry gets ahold of an
issue, he goes deep, in a good way.”
With the growing accessibility to
mapping, I ask Garland if he trusts other
people’s data and the maps they produce.
“Yes and no,” he says mechanically.
“If people go out to specifically collect it,
I trust it. But sometimes it’s junk.”
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