Some good news from our colleagues at the Center for Sustainable Destinations came out this week - they've announced a partnership with organizations in Oregon and Washington to create a geotourism project for the Central Cascades region in the Northwest. If you're not familiar with our geotourism projects, here's a quick recap: The CSD works with local partners and the public to identify authentic, sustainable aspects of a region - be it culture, food, shopping, activities, events, or landmarks. Right now, you can log onto the project's website www.thecentralcascades.com, and nominate places that you think best represent the region's character. CSD will then put them all together to create a geotourism mapguide, which are amazingly accurate and helpful maps. (I've used them before and found that I hardly need a guidebook.) The "Central Cascades" area designated for the map stretches from Mount Rainier National Park to Crater Lake National Park, including communities plus private and public lands in both states. The printed Central Cascades MapGuide will be available in September 2009. A parallel interactive Web site is also being developed, so check out the site now and help others find the best places to visit.
And if you're interested in contributing to other mapguides, Montreal is still taking suggestions through today. CSD also has a complete list of available maps for Guatemala, Rhode Island, Arizona, Vermont, Romania, Norway, Yellowstone, Montana, Appalachia, Peru, Honduras, and Baja, Mexico, many of which are free and available as PDFs online.
Photo: via the Central Cascades site
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Hi Janelle,
I just tweeted about this website. Sounds like a fascinating project. As a University of Oregon J school graduate, my husband and our two teens return to this region each year. Specifically, we head to central Oregon and the Sun River Resort. Very family friendly.
Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Follow me on Twitter @Nancydbrown
What an exciting project - can't wait for the results.
My favorite backpacking in all of the Northwest is in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, south of Mount Rainier in Washington state. I love that you can commune with mountain goats, dip in an alpine lake and walk through a fireworks display of wildflowers -- all in one day.
I'm also quite partial to lazy weekends in the Columbia River Gorge- antique shopping in Lyle, hiking up Beacon Rock, dining on Oregon cuisine in Hood River. There are many wonderful, affordable places to spend the night there, too.
Great picture. Wished we were there.
The idea of partnership and Geotourism project is brilliant.