Over the past five months I have been collecting data on backpacking trails in two wilderness areas - GPS routes, campsites, user impact, natural impact, wildlife, tree damage, sign/kiosk conditions, fire impact, ladder fuel etc.. I am now tasked with creating a database for this information. I would like to create something besides the droll datasheets to visually display this data.

For example: I'd like to make a topo map with trails outlined, and waypoints that you could click to see, say campsite information, or colorize the trails to indicate slope and/or trail conditions. A map and graphs from an excel pivot table together (PDF?) is what I am envisioning, but I don't quite know how to manifest it.

I have Youtube University accredited ArcGIS experience, and some experience with excel. If anyone out there has any experience or ideas for ways to bring this project to fruition I would be grateful!

How many records are we talking about? Is this something you could import by hand? If so, it sounds like an AutoCAD job. I haven't used it in over a decade, but my background is in the geophysical sciences and I've studied Geographic Information Systems as part of my undergraduate degree. I worked as an environmental scientist for a time, which required extensive use of GIS, Excel, and AutoCAD.

I believe AutoCAD will let you import data ranges from Excel as well as topographic maps, so it sounds doable. Of course I really have no idea what the GIS software landscape looks like today, so I'm afraid I may not be of much help. To generate the topo maps I would use a program called Surfer, but this was in reference to groundwater modeling.

As part of that job I used ArcViewGIS; it looks like ArcGIS is its descendant.

You're an environmental scientist? Cool! So you probably agree that electing Trump was a horrible idea, him being a hard core climate change denier and all.

I worked as an environmental scientist for a time; it's not my current field. My background is more or less a combination of physics and geology, with some biology and chemistry thrown in to boot (geophysical science is a broad study). One of my 4th year projects was repeating the experiments of Jan Hosper, measuring the magnetic field of Icelandic basalt and how it recorded the Earth's geomagnetic reversals. I'll always hold a vivid interest in the Earth's (and other planets') vast, interlocking systems.

I really don't have much of an opinion on Trump. I didn't vote for him, but I'm reserving judgement until he has some time in office. I'd prefer not to get into politics here, as it really doesn't have much to do with neon black's request.

Please, no RL political discussion. We have enough drama right now.