A message from the amazing Arizona based photographer Erini Pajak (Instagram) let me know that according to Google a strange black blob had appeared in the Santa Catalina Mountains. I was, of course, 99.999999% sure that this was something mundane like an unfortunate Google maps omission for a government agency or map data oddity/error and not a reflection of the real world. Thinking otherwise is probably the territory of theories like ‘blacked out because of an alien landing’ or ‘blacked out because new high resolution imagery clearly shows the Iron Door of mine-with-the-Iron-Door fame and Google is in the process of claiming mineral rights’ – but Google’s power and reach these days is such that sometimes it seems their information creates and influences reality rather than just reflecting it… So it was with 0.000001% relief that my recent photographs of Cathedral Rock didn’t show a black blob covering the peak!
The images above show the black blob as seen on my screens in early January – I still see the blob on Google Maps, but changing the imagery date in the desktop version of Google Earth immediately shows the expected imagery (shown below). I can’t find any hint of the black blob in Microsoft’s Bing Maps, Gaia GPS and Backcountry Navigator Pro so it appears that the Cathedral Rock area is safe…
I suspect that any map large and detailed enough to be interesting – printed or digital – has errors, or at the very least representations that are historically accurate but not currently relevant…
Witness the Ghost Campgrounds of the Santa Catalina Mountains – current results that come up if you zoom in and search for ‘campgrounds’ in Google Maps…
From left to right:
Box Camp Trailhead: a great place to start a hike and a decent place to backpack from – but there is no campground or camping in the trailhead proper…
Bear Wallow Campground: A beautiful area for a hike, probably the best single spot for Fall color in the Santa Catalina Mountains and the first official campground on the mountain (established in 1921!) – but it has been closed to camping for decades…
Santa Catalina Recreation Area: Well, I guess unlike the previous two examples you could legally camp at, or in many places near this marker – but that is true of most of the Santa Catalina Mountains that (like this spot) are away from roads and ‘civilization’ – there is no road or trail to this area and if there is an opposite of ‘Campground’ this might be it…
In the case of Google Maps the map interface features a ‘Suggest an Edit’ button that allows you to submit potential corrections – I have submitted corrections to the campgrounds above perhaps by the time you look they will be corrected…
I’m sure, especially as you really dig into the details, that there are more interesting mapping oddities, mysteries and errors in the Santa Catalina Mountains – leave a comment if you want to share one!
