Last October, I traveled to Madrid, Spain to participate in Esri Spain’s 2024 User Conference. It was a great week full of map-talk and an amazing opportunity to learn about the work of our users across the Atlantic.
Once the conference ended, I extended my trip by a couple of days and headed out to Picos de Europa National Park.
In researching for my trip, I learned about a cute town called Bulnes. No roads reach Bulnes but you can access it via a funicular or on foot via Canal del Texu.
The funicular opens at 10:00 a.m. and so, to avoid wasting any sunlight, I decided to hike up to Bulnes.
The views along the way were spectacular. Hiking up was definitely the right decision for me. The decision to keep hiking after reaching Bulnes, however, was not.
I won’t drag on about the hike itself, but I’ll share a few fun facts that hopefully speak for themselves:
Fun fact #1
There are adorable fluffy cows all over the area surrounding Bulnes; they wear cow bells that ring as they walk giving the hike a lovely soundtrack.
Fun fact #2
Fluffy cows will follow shepherds around the mountains because they give them salt; salt contains minerals – like calcium – which cows need to survive.
Fun fact #3
If you’re a solo hiker with a tree branch for a hiking stick, fluffy cows might mistake you for a shepherd and chase you around the mountains thinking you have salt to give them.
To commemorate my adventure in Picos de Europa National Park – and surviving the cows – I decided to make a map.
Creating Contours
I wanted to make a map that highlighted the pronounced elevation gain of Picos de Europa National Park – and what better way to do that than with contours.
I often hear from users who get tripped up by the raster size limitation of most Geoprocessing tools. “If the Clip Raster tool doesn’t allow me to process a dataset larger than 5000 x 5000 pixels, then what am I supposed to do?”
Well… you can use the Export Raster pane. The Export Raster pane allows you to “clip” your raster layer to a specified extent, choose the cell and raster size, and change the spatial reference with just a few clicks.
I added the Terrain imagery layer from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World to my map. On the Contents Pane, I right clicked the layer, hovered over Data, and chose Export Raster. In the pane, I set the National Park boundary as the Clipping Geometry and checked the “Maintain Clipping Extent” checkbox. To make sure I could use the raster with any Geoprocessing tool, I modified the values of the Raster Size Columns and Rows to conform to this.
Before generating my contours, I smoothed my raster layer. I like to do this because, without smoothing, contours tend to look “spikier”, and I prefer a cleaner “rounder” look. In this case, I used the Feature Preserving Smoothing Geoprocessing tool. This tool is new in ArcGIS Pro 3.4, and it allows you to smooth an input surface raster to minimize noise without significantly altering other landscape features.
Now that my raster was properly smoothed, I was ready to start trying out different configurations for the Create Contours tool. If anyone out there has the secret formula for creating aesthetic contours on the first try, please let me know in the comments. I tend to approach this task with an open mind – open to spending lots of time figuring out the right interval size. After several iterations, this is what my final contour layer looks like.
Creating a Profile Graph
While I could’ve solely relied on the contours to communicate elevation gain along the hike, I decided to add a profile graph to better convey how much I actually hiked that day.
First, I used the Interpolate Shape Geoprocessing tool to add elevation data to the line feature for the trail. Interpolate Shape is a tool that converts a 2D feature class into a 3D feature class by interpolating z-values from a surface. It’s very handy for when you need to quickly add elevation data to features instead of manually inputting the z-values. Check out this page of the ArcGIS Pro documentation to learn more about how Interpolate Shape works.
Then, I took the output and created a profile graph of my path. Because I digitized the way out and the way back as two separate features, the profile graph initially showed one stacked over the other starting from zero. New in ArcGIS Pro 3.4 is the option to display these as a continuous line using the Chain toggle in the Charts Properties pane. Once enabled, the hike is represented from beginning to end.
Also in the Charts Properties pane, I used the new Track cursor toggle to interactively see the level of elevation at each point on the trail as it goes up and down the mountain. Although not directly related to the map itself, this option was great for showing everyone how much I had already hiked when the cows started following me – I’m really fun at parties.
While I was working on this map, I created an ArcGIS Pro Short. If you follow ArcGIS Pro on social media, you might’ve already seen it but, in case you haven’t, here’s a 1-minute video of how I made this Profile Chart.
Final Map
This is what the map ended up looking like.
I started with a poster-size layout but, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was trying to fill up the space with things the map didn’t actually need. Using the Layout Page Setup Properties, I started playing around with different ratios until I settled on a square layout.
The shape of the park makes it look like it’s reaching out for something. It felt appropriate for that something to be the top elevation on the profile graph, so I played around with the Y-axis label spacing until it did.
Final thoughts
To get to my (lovely) b&b, I had to drive along Río Cares. Driving in the area is beautiful but requires true skill – a skill I don’t possess. I would like to close out this blog by apologizing to all the cars that had to drive around me as I struggled to stay on the road going 20km/h under the speed limit.
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