Anyone who has made a ski or snowboard tour on a border region in Europe will know just how frustrating maps can be. A nice detailed 1:25000 series French IGN map suddenly turns into a vague ‘here be dragons’ sketch reminiscent of the middle ages the second it crosses over the border.
Whassup? Can’t their planes see over the border? Maybe there is a permanent cloud cover on that side of the frontier? So you end up touring with twice as many maps as you need.
The solution now seems at hand. The Alps Sans Frontiers (no, it is not a winter version of Jeux Sans Frontiers) group aims to produce detailed maps spanning the alpine borders. The IGN has released a series of 1:25000 maps covering the long frontier with Italy and Switzerland from Nice to Lake Geneva. The maps are not cheap at 19 € but they are at least GPS (WGS84/UTM) compliant, a fairly recent innovation for the conservative map makers of the Institute Geographique National.
For more information see the IGN website
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