Topo Contour Lines in Meters or Feet?

[kevroc]

Okay, I'm confused.  I thought the USGS Quads were all in feet, and thought the MyTopo maps were the same.  But now I see the mytopo maps in meters and the USGS Quads, well...some are feet and some are meters.  Is it just a matter of "be thankful what you get" or is there some way to get them all in feet?

Thanks,

Kevin

[ScottMorris]

I believe it is be thankful for what you get. 

However, almost all of the 24k (highest resolution) that I have seen in either Topo or MyTopo are in feet.  Only the larger scale maps seem to be in meters, for some reason.

Maybe in Alaska things are a little different, but everywhere in the lower 48 the most detailed maps should be in feet.  Is this not the case?

[kevroc]

I was looking at Topo maps of Mount Whitney near Lone Pine, CA and they look to be in Meters.

[berck]

I've seen the same thing, but be grateful. All the USGS topos for that area have been messed up from the servers for some time. At least the MyTopo versions are accurate.

[ScottMorris]

Sure enough, even the myTopo maps are in meters.  Huh, didn't know that.  Otherwise they look good though!  Thanks for pointing that out.

[kevroc]

At least my Garmin Topo 24k maps are in feet, I'll probably use those for the Whitney Area.  That's one thing I liked on the delorme is the ability to set which map shows at which zoom level.  That way you could toggle between two maps just by zooming in 1 level or out 1 level.  For the Garmin I'll just enable/disable Custom Maps as needed and have the best of both worlds