I really like a good map. A GPS + Laptop is great, but nothing works like a piece of paper when the batteries go dead or your laptop falls into the lake. Unfortunately, finding high quality topo maps for free is a chore.

When I first started searching for topo maps all I was able to find were those provided by Jared Benedict over at redjar.org. Then he started the map ransom project, which finally freed the maps. Now you can download any of the US Quads you want over at libre map. The drawback here is that the topos are all 100dpi scans (for most of the quads). Depending on how you print them, it can be difficult to make out some of the details.

Well, after some more searching I was directed to the USDA Forest Service geospatial data clearinghouse. Here you can download high quality (300dpi mostly) raster TIFs of the same quads, produced by the NFS. One great thing about the NFS maps is that the forest roads are all numbered.

The downside is that some of the NFS maps don’t have roads the USGS topos have, and vice versa. In practice it’s definitely best to have as many maps as you can of an area if you want to have the best coverage of an area.