A good map opens people’s eyes. For almost 30 years, a renowned mapping company based in Pennsylvania has been charting a positive course for the future of the state’s outdoor recreation industry.
Grand adventures often have humble beginnings, as is the case with Purple Lizard Maps, which got its start in founder Michael Hermann’s bedroom in State College. Nineteen maps later, the company now has a presence in major chains like REI and Public Lands, though Hermann encourages people to support local whenever possible.
What sets Purple Lizard apart is its people, who have a love not only for cartography but for the places they’re mapping.
“Our team of map designers are also recreational enthusiasts,” Hermann said. “To me, that is what being a map maker is, and that is definitely a lost art in the digital world.”
When designing a new map, they explore the trails, drive the dirt roads, and visit the nearby towns, looking for the places that fellow adventurers would want to know about. That benefits not just the people using the maps, but the communities, often small, that border trails and parks.
“What we want to do is make sure that those gateway towns have a prominence on a Purple Lizard map so that they aren’t just a town that people see as a place to pass through but as a place to stop at,” Hermann explained.
Before starting Purple Lizard, Hermann had a dream job working for Trails Illustrated, one of the most respected recreation map companies now operated under National Geographic. He lived in the mountains of Colorado. He should have been ecstatic but found the work stifling and the outdoors overly crowded. So he returned to Pennsylvania and started making the kinds of maps that he would want to use.
As Hermann likes to say, “Purple Lizard evolved out of a creative frustration, a love for Pennsylvania, wanting to come back to Pennsylvania and unlock some of the landscapes here.”
Last year, PEC partnered with Purple Lizard to create the first Pennsylvania Statewide Outdoor Recreation Lizard Map. It shows the state parks, the long-distance hiking and biking trails, and much more.
“We thought it was really important to unlock that landscape statewide and show people the depth of public lands that’s out there for them to find,” Hermann said.
The map also reveals the potential for future growth — places where trails can be connected to form a network, such as PEC has been advocating for in places like Philadelphia (home of the Circuit Trails) and the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition.
“Hopefully our maps can enact change on many levels,” Hermann said.
Episode Links
- Purple Lizard Maps
- PEC, Purple Lizard Partner on Statewide Outdoor Recreation Map
Josh Raulerson (00:01):
It is Friday, September 20th, 2024 for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. This is Pennsylvania Legacies. I’m Josh Raulerson. Behind many of PEC’s trail projects, reports and analyses are well-crafted maps. It’s also true for planning events like the upcoming Public Lands ride, which is returning to Black Moshannon State Park. In just over a week. Maps help to tell stories, to show patterns and reveal opportunities. That’s why PEC has trained cartographers on our staff. We also work with the people at Purple Lizard Maps, a State College-based company that specializes in maps geared for outdoor recreation. They’re just one piece of Pennsylvania’s vibrant and growing outdoor economy. Purple Lizard Maps cover parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Puerto Rico. They’re well-loved among outdoor enthusiasts for their detailed, yet easy-to-read design as well as for their sense of humor. Last year, PEC partnered with Purple Lizard on the first ever Pennsylvania Statewide Outdoor Recreation Map, showing a comprehensive overview of trails, state parks, ski areas, and many more places to play outdoors. On this episode, my colleague Derek Maiolo, spoke with the founder and lead cartographer of Purple Lizard, Michael Herman, about starting the company, why he chose Pennsylvania as home base, how good maps can chart a positive course for the future of recreation, as well as stewardship and the Purple Lizard Tattoo Club. Here’s their conversation.
Derek Maiolo (01:32):
Mike, thank you so much for being on Pennsylvania Legacies.
Michael Hermann (01:35):
Oh, thank you. It’s great to be here.
Derek Maiolo (01:38):
So first, talk a little bit about Purple Lizard Maps. What is it that you do?
Michael Hermann (01:42):
Well, we specialize in outdoor recreation maps, trail maps but they’re really much more than that. A Purple Lizard map has been highly curated for the outdoor enthusiasts, you know, so they include the full spectrum of outdoor recreation, and the way we make them is we blend the best aspects of old world map making with all the advantages of the high tech digital data. They say cartography is a mix of art and science, and we definitely are trying to go pretty far on the art side, trying to make maps that are really easy to read, really enjoyable for people to have and want to open up and want to read. The other big difference with Purple Lizard Maps is we’re in the landscapes that we map. We actually go in and spend time in those communities and drive those roads. To me, that is what being a map maker is, and that is definitely a lost art in the digital world. Most of the maps you see out there are made by people far, far away from the, from the landscape that they’re actually making a map of. So we always, we always immerse ourselves in those landscapes that we’re mapping.
Derek Maiolo (02:47):
How did you get started in cartography?
Michael Hermann (02:51):
My timing wise, I was the first generation of digital cartographers out of the Penn State Geography Program in the early 1990s. My first job was with Trails Illustrated. Trails Illustrated, still around today. They still are — and, and even at that time when I started working for them — they were the largest recreational map publisher in the U.S. and when I was working for them, I was part of the first team to take them from manual cartography workflow into a digital environment. So we were coming up with, with new ways for them to make their maps using computers, and to switch the whole product line of a couple hundred maps into that workflow over the course of the next decade. And they were also in the process of being bought by National Geographic, so they were being folded into the National Geographic Publishing Empire. And to be a part of that, to be, to be there at that time was, was really exciting.
Michael Hermann (03:43):
And I thought that was my dream job, right? I mean, I’m working in Colorado, we had an office was at like 7 or 8,000 feet. I rented a cabin at 10,000 feet in the foothills of Mount Evans. It was, I thought that was just going to be it for me. What I found was how much I missed Pennsylvania. And this surprises people because this was even in the nineties, but the western outdoor rec. scene was very crowded, very busy, and very hard to access. Meaning if you weren’t at a trailhead by 4:45, 5 o’clock, that trailhead parking lot was full. And when you got on the trail, you were sharing it with a lot of people. You were just in the line with a lot of people. And that western landscape was really big and far apart. So like a hundred miles between gaps or access points.
Michael Hermann (04:30):
So we did a lot of epic rides, a lot of epic snowboarding, a lot of epic backcountry. But I found myself missing what we had in Pennsylvania because in Pennsylvania we have a much more accessible forest, and we have a higher density of mountain bike trails and hiking trails and, and a real diversity to those environments across the state. And I also saw how they were marketing public land out west, how they were selling that. They were, they had a rec economy and they were selling it, right? That was their tourism in a way that Pennsylvania hadn’t done, wasn’t really doing, wasn’t looking at it that way. So I just, I got creatively stifled because all those maps had to look the same way. And they weren’t, they were using computers to make the maps look the same as they had made them without computers.
Michael Hermann (05:19):
So as the artistic side we were saying it wasn’t, it wasn’t just me, but, but all of us first generation were like, well, wait, wait, wait. We have so many more creative tools now we can think differently. We can do this or differently. But at that time it was like, no, no, no, we, we want them to look like the benchmark standard. Like they should look like the USGS topo maps, which are the, the standard paper topo maps of the era. So Purple Lizard evolved out of a creative frustration, a love of Pennsylvania wanting to come back to Pennsylvania and unlock some of the landscapes here, and to push my creative boundaries as a, as a map designer and be able to do my best work, which meant having unlimited freedom on the template of what that map looks like. So that was, that was the whole genesis of Purple Lizard. You know, looking back, quitting, quitting a, a very fantastic job opportunity and starting a purple blizzard from scratch in my bedroom back in State College. And what that looked like was me going back to working part-time in a bicycle shop and full-time, designing this map of Roth Rock State Forest and finding ways to get it published. And then publishing, now we have 19 maps. We just published our just published our first map of Maryland, Western Maryland.
Derek Maiolo (06:42):
Yeah. What’s the geographic span of your maps and what, what areas of has Purple Lizard mapped?
Michael Hermann (06:47):
Our main focus is Pennsylvania. It always has been, but we have two maps in West Virginia, two maps in Virginia, Shenandoah National Park, and we have a map in Ohio, and we have a map in Puerto Rico. So we’re, we’re pretty diverse. Our, our main focus is still Pennsylvania, but we’re, we’re, we’re working in Maryland and West Virginia and Ohio as well.
Derek Maiolo (07:12):
How do you choose which areas to map?
Michael Hermann (07:14):
A lot of that comes down to a mix of where are the interesting places that people are going, right? So what’s, what’s a happening spot? What’s a dynamic spot? What’s a spot that doesn’t have very many other good maps of it? We try to bring all those things together when we look at a, a critical review of a different spot or a different state specific to then, like within Pennsylvania, there’s also, I like to do what I call the organic growth, where our, we do a map and then we do a map that overlaps on that map, picks up where that map ends because when people start to use our maps and they, and they learn to trust them and they learn to read them, and they, they get a lot of enjoyment out of them, they really dive into that map, you know, they keep, it keeps drawing you back to go explore more. So then if we do a map of an adjacent state forest, they’ll look at that, say, oh, well if I drive another 30 minutes, I can now explore this state forest over here. So that’s like the way we started with Rothrock State Forest. But now we have Bald Eagle State Forest, and the Moshannon State Forest, and those all overlap on each other in Center County, Central PA. A lot of our Pennsylvania maps have some overlap to them, and the ones that are outliers then we’re trying to fill in the blanks in between.
Derek Maiolo (08:27):
The Public Lands Ride is coming up on September 28th, so can you talk a bit about the Black Moshannon State Park map, maybe like what’s special about this area and how did, how is the map used with that ride?
Michael Hermann (08:40):
So it’s sort of like the, the chicken or the egg question. I tend to think that that ride exists because we published that map prior to our map coming out. There wasn’t a way to really understand how interesting that landscape was. So what’s unique about the Black Moshannon area is the rolling topography of it. So that’s called Appalachian Plateau and it’s actually, it’s actually on the divide of the Allegheny Front and the Appalachian Plateau as opposed to what geographers called the Ridge Valley of Central PA. So Rothrock State Forest, and Raystown Lake and Bald Eagle State Forest, they are long valleys and long ridge lines folding back on each other. So there’s a lot of long climbs up to the top of a mountain, then a long descent down the other side and a long traverse through a valley and then a big climb out.
Michael Hermann (09:38):
When you look at Black Moshannon, it has a much more rolling topography. So the nooks and crannies make it, make it really interesting. You know, it has a lot of streams, there’s a lot of diversity in the forest. It has a very remote feel to it. It also has a magnificent state park to base out of. So that Black Moshannon State Park in Black Moshannon State Forest. And that’s a political designation that a lot of people don’t necessarily key in on. But in Pennsylvania we have state parks and we have state forests. State forests are kept pretty remote. They’re a large portions of them are working for us in some form of natural resource extraction economy, whether that’s timbering or gas and oil industry. State parks are where you find infrastructure. So state parks have a visitor center and a, and potentially a lake and a swimming beach and cabins and campgrounds and, and it’s a place to base out of. And those state parks are nestled within the broader state forest landscapes. So Moshannon is really awesome because Black Moshannon State Park is spectacular, and then you have all the state forest lands around it that you can disappear down this network of dirt roads and gravel roads, which of course is great for a gravel ride. You don’t have many long, difficult climbs. So it opens up that terrain to a, to a broad range of participants. And it’s an extremely remote field. I mean, you’re, you pedal five minutes out of that parking lot and you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere and, and you kind of are.
Derek Maiolo (11:15):
Has that happened elsewhere where you have mapped an area and then later someone or a group forms a ride or an event around like utilizing some of the routes that you have mapped?
Michael Hermann (11:29):
It has. I’d say probably two of the largest groups that come to mind would be the Transylvania Epic to the seven day stage day stage race event in Bald Eagle and Rothrock State Forest, and the same original organizers Dave Pryor and Mike with Unpaved. So Unpaved was basically those guys studying the Bald Eagle State Forest map and thinking about how they could put together a series of different lengthy loops, primarily on dirt roads starting and finishing from a community. And so in, in that particular landscape, in that map, the town of Lewisburg really spoke, because it’s on the edge of Bald Eagle State Forest and it has easy access. There’s a rail trail that feeds you into the forest. So it sort of had all, you could look at the map and if you, if you look at it through the lens of a, of a race promoter’s eye or an event promoter’s eye, it had all the elements that they needed to get people safely in and out of a community into the forest, have their adventure and come back into the infrastructure.
Michael Hermann (12:41):
So that’s always the balance. And that’s also one of the things that we really try to do at Purple Lizard Maps is not just focus on the public land of the state forest, but we also want to show those communities around the state forest. So our maps will often cover a little more area than people might expect because we’re trying to reach out and make sure a town like Lewisburg is shown and celebrated, because those are the, the term people take to use is gateway towns, you know, a gateway town, a gateway to the outdoors. What we want to do is make sure that those gateway towns have a prominence on a Purple Lizard map so that they aren’t just a town that people see as a place to pass through, but as a place to actually stop at. So that sort of ties this map and the outdoor rec economy back together, because if you’re on the road and you’re going out for a long weekend or a day trip or whatever, right? There’s oftentimes it would be nice if there was food involved <laugh>. So if you can look at our maps and be like, oh, if we come through this community, you know, we’re going to find little sandwich shops or microbreweries or coffee shops. Maybe you’re looking for a place to stay to do an overnight, maybe you’re not necessarily camping in the, in the forest, but you want actually stay in a hotel or a motel. So those towns become a part of that recreational adventure and they have equal importance to the actual deep dark forests that were unlocked.
Derek Maiolo (14:13):
Yeah, I noticed on maps like the Statewide Recreation Map, you have icons that also let people know certain designations that a town has. Like there’s a bike friendly community I know is one. And so it alerts people to, if you are biking through, you know, okay, this, this town has some businesses catering specifically to my activity that I’m doing. So incorporating some of those additional, that additional information that help, I think you, it’s a two-way street, right? It helps people who are out recreating know where to go for food for I need my tire changed or whatever. And also can help communities take advantage of the people who are coming through and, and recreating in that area.
Michael Hermann (14:56):
And that speaks to the uniqueness of how we’ve built Purple Lizard. Our team of map designers are also recreational enthusiasts. So our people come from hiking and riding bikes and rail trails and exploring. So when they’re making the maps, they, they know what that community is looking for. They know what the helpful information is and like specifically to pull to pulling out bicycle friendly communities. Those communities worked hard to get that ranking. That’s not an easy national ranking to get, to be an official bicycle friendly community usually takes many years of applying and improving your infrastructure and making sure you have the amenities that are, is needed to, to make the cut, to get that threshold beause that is an official designation. That’s not just us saying, Hey, that’s a fun town if you’re on a bicycle. It’s a, it is a national designation and it’s a, there’s a certain, you know, there’s a process to apply and be accepted as that. We want to both reward those communities for making that effort and help get that message out to the public that this, this is a community that cares about cyclists. And like you said, if you, if you’re on a bike tour or a vacation, this might be a town that you would prefer to stay at and base out. It’s trying to match up what’s on the landscape with what we feel our people are looking for.
Derek Maiolo (16:26):
The Pennsylvania Environmental Council partnered with Purple Lizard on the Statewide Outdoor Recreation Map, which was one of the first to really give a comprehensive overview of recreation opportunities across the commonwealth. So can you tell me first, where did the idea for this map come from?
Michael Hermann (16:44):
I mean, that was sort of simmering below the surface in the back of my mind because I’m always thinking of like new maps I want to make, new things I want to draw. Our focus is usually state forest, right? So our focus on our maps is usually a very detailed map of a relatively small area. A small could still be like three, three to 500,000 acres small, right? So it’s not that small, but mainly focusing on the public land. But Pennsylvania is really unique because we have all these linear corridors. We have so many long distance hiking trails and so many rail trails or bike paths, bikeways, you know, they have, they, they go by different names if they’re not an official rail trail per se, but they traverse areas that are otherwise private land, right? So it’s, it’s not usually a place we would map because looking at it from a distance, you’re like, well there’s, there’s not that much there. But when you actually zoom out and look at the state and see how many rail trails there are and how, how close, it also shows how close they are to all connecting into this amazing interconnected network. And we wanted to show that potential. It was, it was really just something that we, we, we knew Pennsylvania was unique. They were making so many inroads with these long distance rail trails. You heard of the big ones, like hopefully the, the GAP trail, the Great Allegheny passage connecting to the C&O. Like that’s a, that’s a big nationally recognized one and people knew about the Pine Creek Rail Trail, but there’s so many of these smaller ones that aren’t as well known. And same with all these long distance hiking trails. And we just thought it was really important to unlock that landscape statewide and show people the depth of public lands that’s out there for them to find, you know, to show all the state parks, all the state forests.
Michael Hermann (18:35):
And that was a big project in park on, on a map like that <laugh>. So it was, it was, oh, we, we picked away at that for a couple years until finally figuring out how we could do that and how we could pull that off. It was a very, it was a very big design puzzle. It was a very big data puzzle, aesthetic puzzle. How to present that information in the, in this hierarchy of visual layers so that people could look at it and comprehend what they’re looking at and understand it. And I think that map nailed it on like every level. And I mean, we use that map, right? I mean, we made that map and we use that map <laugh>, you know, we, we open up that map and think, oh, we’re okay, what if we want to drive three hours instead of two hours? Where can we go?
Derek Maiolo (19:18):
We’re coming up what, on about a year? I think since this the first edition since this map came out. What has been the response that you’ve heard from people who’ve used it from communities, maybe even like, have you heard at all from higher level, like folks from Department of Conservation Natural Resources or any of like the people, like trail managers, folks like that?
Michael Hermann (19:39):
We have heard from many, many land managers and many people in government from across the spectrum of DCNR to our state senators, our congressmen. So many people have seen that map and really been appreciative of it because in a lot of ways it validates the work that they’re trying to do at a really high 30,000 foot level that the general public doesn’t necessarily see. It takes so much effort to extend a rail trail 10 miles. It takes so much work to have a big vision and say, what would it be like if we could connect this town to that town? Can we do that in 10 years? Can we do that in 20 years? The price tags are really big, there’s a lot of people involved. And so it’s a mix of showing what has been done and acknowledging how fantastic that is, and also looking at the future potential of what can be done on those landscapes.
Michael Hermann (20:39):
So it’s interesting, a lot of people’s eyes go to where there is a lot of public land, like the PA Wilds, and they say, oh man, look at all this. Look at all this green, right? All this great stuff up here to explore and other people’s eyes look to the areas that don’t have a lot of green or a lot of rail trails. And they say, oh, well what can we do to get something happening over here? Right? It’s like the old world, the blank spots on the map was where the explorers would go. So now they look at the blank spots on our PA map and they say, wow, well, why don’t those communities have any rail trails or any state parks or any state forests? What can we do there? That’s what maps should do. The power of maps is to open people’s eyes on so many different levels, not just to give them the ability to go out and recreate, but to give a policymaker or a politician or a land conservancy, the ability to look at a landscape and say, Hey, we could probably come in here and make a difference.
You know, there’s some work to be done in this part of the state. So I think that’s, that’s really rewarding. Where I think it’s part of our philosophy is that hopefully our maps can enact change on many levels. So on a very personal level, we get a lot of emails from people that just say, thank you for making this map of whatever this area is. You know, I live here, I picked up this map, now I’m hiking three days a week. I’ve found all these places within an hour of my house that I didn’t know were there. You know, it’s been a great resource for our family to go do things together as well as something from a high level person in a position of power that says, Hey, I looked at your map. Wow, wouldn’t it be great? We only need to connect these two communities, you know, with another 25 miles of rail trail.
Michael Hermann (22:22):
And then people could do this loop. And that ties back into both people’s quality of life, economic development or economic redevelopment to help vitalize some of these communities that haven’t had a lot of, a lot of people don’t have a lot of reason to go to some of these communities, but then if you put, if you can connect them by a rail trail, then they do. So it, it’s really a win-win situation all around. It’s, it’s trying to promote outdoor rec, to grow outdoor rec and also to instill a sense of stewardship because the more people we can get in the forest, using the forest correctly, understanding it, its value as a recreational asset for physical health, for mental health, for, for just personal enjoyment for inexpensive vacation opportunities. The more we have, the more we create that momentum of people that are like, yeah, a realtor would be great here. So yeah, really just trying to get more people involved in the outdoors and seeing the, the positive change that it can make.
Derek Maiolo (23:25):
Yeah, and the map, too, came at such an opportune time, right? Because last year we saw the creation, the official creation of like the Office of Outdoor Recreation in Pennsylvania. It just, it came at a time when we really saw this ramping up of investment, I think in, in outdoor recreation, which hopefully just continues to grow. And this is part of that progress.
Michael Hermann (23:45):
Yeah, it’s, I mean, the map really validates the hard work that those people have been doing for a long time. And I mean as you know, PEC plays a big role in that as well. It’s not, it’s not just DCNR, it’s not just the Governor’s office. There’s a whole host of people working really hard through a network of nonprofits, from little community organizations to larger statewide organizations that identify the needs and then help find solutions to make that happen. And, and that’s been a, that’s been a huge cultural shift, right? So if you think back to what recreation looked like in the previous generation, you know, it was very much identified as the sportsman, right? So outdoor recreation was very much seen through the lens of hunting and fishing. It was very gender specific. It was very male dominated. Wasn’t that much of a whole family effect.
Michael Hermann (24:38):
There wasn’t a mountain bike, right? You didn’t retire and buy a, a nice bicycle and go ride it, right? You golfed, you joined a country club. Grown men didn’t ride bicycles for fun, right? In the previous generation, skiing and snowboarding, cross country skiing, those were all seen as things maybe you did on vacation, you didn’t do them all the time. It wasn’t part of your lifestyle who was rock climbing, right? In the last generation, that wasn’t a thing. We didn’t have things like wakeboarding, we didn’t have paddle boarding. Like the, the, the, the sheer growth of the spectrum of toys that adults can use in the outdoors, right? The, the comfort level that our kayaks are at the comfort level that our boats are at, that our vehicles are at right now. You buy an all-wheel, every, it seems everybody has an all-wheel drive car. You can drive them in, in the forest. It, it’s not like the previous generation where you had to buy this old interesting, uncomfortable willie’s jeep to go get back there to go fishing, right? So our comfort level has increased, our access to the outdoors has increased.
Derek Maiolo (25:47):
We are certainly seeing a growth in accessibility, in popularity of, of outdoor recreation. And, and you did speak to that element of stewardship that I think if you go on Purple Lizard’s website, you all you know, your business, you certainly have a sustainability in mind and that element of giving back to the environment. How have you seen the connection between enjoying the outdoors and that sense of stewardship? Like where, where do you see that connection?
Michael Hermann (26:14):
I think we see it in several different ways. We see it happening on the community level with the growth of clubs. So whether it’s a hiking club, whether it’s a mountain biking club or trail running club, it can be a, a dual sport motorcycle riding club or an over landing club. The motor motorsport people are, are involved in stewardship as well. They are coming together and they’re identifying the needs in their communities and they’re saying, Hey, let’s get together on Saturday and hike this trail with a dozen people. And somebody will bring a chainsaw and somebody will bring some loppers and somebody will bring some hand trimmers and we’ll cut back the sticker bushes and we’ll cut out the two trees that fell down and we’ll open up this trail. And then there’s statewide organizations like KTA, Keystone Trails Association. So they’re working hard to encourage more people to come into a stewardship role and giving them opportunities to adopt a trail, keep a trail open, come together on a weekend to work on this.
Michael Hermann (27:13):
So it’s happening at community levels, it’s happening at statewide levels. There’s also a lot of people that just see that happening, but they either don’t, it doesn’t fit their schedule or they don’t want to make that type of a commitment. There’s a lot of sort of rugged individuality in terms of personalities across the paddle community, the mountain bike community, the, the hiking community. But those people see those models happening and they say, Hey, okay, I’m just going to go out on Saturday and I’m going to hike 10 miles and I am going to bring my chainsaw and I’m going to bring my lockers and I’m going to do my part to open that up. You’re also seeing it in youth leagues. So like NCA and PICL, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League. So these are high school level competitive mountain biking leagues that are happening nationwide, but they’re very strong in Pennsylvania.
Michael Hermann (28:09):
And to bring people into the fold like that at that age is fantastic because they start to understand sustainable trail design. They understand the enjoyment of outdoor exercise and outdoor recreation. And it forms a whole community social support network right from the start. I always wanted to make sure that a Purple Lizard map, and I state this up front when we meet with the land managers, I want this to be a management tool for you, the land manager, right? This is your forest. I don’t want our maps to cause problems with your forest. I want our maps to be a couple things. I want them to be a dispersion tool. I want them, which means take pressure off of the greatest hits parking lot. You know, there’s always a place that everybody goes to maybe because that’s the only information they find on the internet, but our maps let them look at that and say, wow, if we just drove another 10 minutes, we could access this pocket of trails on the backside of this mountain and have it all to ourselves. Our maps should get people into the surrounding communities look for the features that, the cultural features that we pull out, the historic features, you know, things like covered bridges or waterfalls, things that are fun to go find. The scenic overlooks all the little mystery spots. We put a purple lizard at that. Within the legend it says, this could mean anything, but it’s just worth your time to go find it and see what’s there.
Derek Maiolo (29:31):
I saw one just recently and it was cool. It was like the a tap, like beer taps were just like out, there’s—
Michael Hermann (29:37):
Oh, the beer tap that’s in Rothrock State Forest.
Derek Maiolo (29:39):
It is in, it’s in Rothrock. Okay. I’d never heard of that. And it was cool ’cause I think in one of the comments someone, one was like, what is this? And you gave an explanation. I did not realize that that was a thing.
Michael Hermann (29:50):
Right. There’s a, there’s a legacy to that. And that’s you know, I love finding the, the history of it, the, the backstory and I love it when we’re, we’re having like my favorite meeting, it’s let’s called a tailgate meeting, right? Where you just sort of met some locals, they don’t know what Purple Lizard is. We’re telling them we’re making a map of the area, and we drop the tailgate on the pickup. We lay out the maps and show them what we’re doing and these guys have grown up there and lived there for generations. And they’ll look at our map and they’ll say, oh, I never knew you could get over to that side of the ridge from that valley on that road. I didn’t know that connected. Right? And that’s like the great validation where like, yes, if you can, if you can let the locals see the landscape in a different way, then you’re definitely doing a good job.
Derek Maiolo (30:37):
Where can people pick up a Purple Lizard Map?
Michael Hermann (30:40):
Well, hopefully you can find them in whatever town you live in. They are available through your local bike shop. Your local outfitter, your local bookstore. Even if they don’t have a Purple Lizard Map, you can ask them to call us and bring in, even if they just want to order one Purple Lizard map for you we can accommodate that with them. We have about right now about 350 mom and pop stores across five or six states that carry our maps as well as some big stores like they’re in, they’re in about 25 different reis. So if you’re in a more urban area that has an REIs or a Public Lands or an L.L. Bean, you can find our maps there. But we always encourage people to shop local first if they can. If that doesn’t work for you, you can always go to purplelizard.com. We sell direct on our website. You can always find our maps there.
Derek Maiolo (31:29):
All right. Well, yeah, I definitely encourage people to check out the website. We’ll include a link for that in the, the show notes and follow you on social media because It is very fun to keep a pace of where you’re adventuring.
Michael Hermann (31:39):
Yeah, we, we try to share our travels on Instagram and Facebook and I think what’s even more interesting I mean to us anyway, is how many other people are sharing their adventures and tagging Purple Lizard Maps. So that’s really rewarding, you know, to know that people are out there having some fun adventures in our maps are opening up those landscapes for them.
Derek Maiolo (32:01):
That’s a great segue to my last question. I’d seen on, on social media, a lot of times people will tag you about they’ve joined the Purple Lizard Tattoo Club, right? So they’ve gotten a tattoo of the, the lizard <laugh> and I’m curious, talk about the, the Purple Lizard Tattoo Club, and I’m wondering if you have a Purple Lizard tattoo?
Michael Hermann (32:19):
I do not have any tattoos. So, no, I, I do not. But yeah, people, people have been getting purple lizard tattoos. It’s a, it is funny because we make a mention in our fine print that talks about the copyrights on our map and that you can’t digitally you can’t reproduce our maps without our permission except for tattoos. Those are encouraged. So we sort of put that on there as a sort of lighthearted little close to that line. And then sure enough, people have been getting tattoos so they have a lizard spot wherever they go. And I think it’s, and they all have a personal story that, I mean, they’re all, they’re doing that because the map has made such an impact on their life. You know, it’s, it’s changed their relationship with the outdoors. It’s probably changed their, a lot of those are athletes or it’s changed their relationship with their, with the physicality of their own body and what they’re capable of doing. And that’s, that’s really rewarding to us that, that people feel that strongly about Purple Lizard.
Derek Maiolo (33:16):
Michael Herman, Founder and Lead Cartographer at Purple Lizard Maps, thank you so much for being on Pennsylvania Legacies.
Michael Hermann (33:22):
Thank you. It’s been great talking with you.
Josh Raulerson (33:27):
You can find out more about Purple Lizard and where to get hold of their maps via links you’ll find in the show notes for this episode on the PEC website at pecpa.org. And while registration for the Public Lands Ride has sold out, you can join PEC for another bike outing in the Philadelphia area this fall. It’s a special one day fall bike out expedition on October 18th. Please also consider supporting the 2024 PEC Environment Ride, our annual fundraiser for trail initiatives in the southeast region of Pennsylvania. Details for both of those events are again, in the show notes for this episode on our website. There you can learn more about PEC’s work in outdoor recreation development, conservation, and more at pecpa.org, pecpa.org. All of our past episodes are on the website as well. You can stream the podcast there at pecpa.org or subscribe using a podcast app on your mobile device. That’s all for this time. Check back in two weeks for the next episode of Pennsylvania Legacies. Until then, for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and Derek Maiolo, I’m Josh Raulerson and thanks for listening.