QGIS Guide

QGIS is a free, open source Geographical Information Systems (GIS) program. It will allow you to stack all the downloads on top of each other and view all the provided data in a concise view. The directions here are very general, and assume some computer expertise.

Start by downloading the program from here, and installing it on your computer.

From the "Downloads" section on the main page, download every link other than the main "Google Earth" link. Meaning the routes, hazards, and campsites layers, as well as all the underlying ortho-imagery files (mbtiles).

Open QGIS, and right click in the white "Layers Panel" and select "Add Group". Name the group "Routes". Repeat this step, and name another group "Imagery".

With the "Routes" group highlighted in the layers panel, click the "Add Vector Layer" button in the left toolbar (the very top button in the left toolbar). Add each KML file one at a time, selecting all sub-layers when prompted in the popup window.

Once loaded, you will have to go through each layer and re-assign the colors to each layer, as they are not conserved upon load. In the "layer list" pane, simply double-click on the layer name and a menu will pop up where you can easily change the color.

With the "Imagery" group highlighted in the layers panel, click the "Add Raster Layer" button in the left toolbar, directly underneath the Vector button. In the resultant selection window, sort by "file type", then select all the mbtiles files at once, and click open.

You can create additional groups to further organize the layers. I created groups for Routes, Hazards, Other Routes (boat trips, river bed, etc), Topo Maps, Paper Maps, Depth Data, and Imagery. I then added new layers into their respective groups.

You can sort the imagery by water height (highest to lowest), but know that some of the imagery is a composite of multiple time periods where some sections of the imagery will have slight different water heights than others. This makes sorting difficult and dependent on which section of the reservoir you're working on.

Click the check boxes to turn layers on and off (You can also use the space bar with the layer highlighted).

Note: With respect to imagery, if you have multiple layers checked, the top most layer will be the only one that shows, unless transparency is changed for a layer.