João Paulo Curti traverses a trail in the Arcata Community Forest. His interactive map and video have made the trail system easier to navigate.
Last year, when nature lover João Paulo Curti left Brazil and came to HSU as an exchange student, he immediately took to the Arcata Community Forest. The Forestry major set off on his bike, and with a video camera strapped to his helmet, took shots of what he saw. He shared the footage online to show his family and friends back home what he was doing–and the stunning place he was doing it–in his spare time.
So began João’s interactive odyssey.
Armed with that camera and a lot of stamina, he headed into the forest to document trails wide and narrow, high and low. The end result is this detailed online interactive map, which lists information such as trail lengths, levels of difficulty, types of trees. It also includes video from his point of view. He even included hiking circuits along with movie references–think “The Lord of the Rings.” (Click on “Hiking Circuits” at the top of the page).
Watch the video above to see the inspiration behind the map, and to get a taste of what it took to create it.