An iPhone will not let this page go full screen. Add it to your Home Screen and it opens with no browser bars.
Look around: on a computer, move the mouse toward an edge of the picture and the view turns
that way, and the rig steers with it; the middle of the picture holds still. Dragging the picture works
too, with the mouse or a finger (a phone drags). Nothing takes your cursor away from you.
Drive: press and hold the big Hold this down button along the bottom, or hold W / the up
arrow. The rig steers toward wherever you are looking. S / the down arrow backs up.
Choose where to go: the Auto button opens Self Drive, which lists
every real campsite on this tile with its road miles. Say Drive me there on one and
the window shuts, the page draws the route along the real mapped roads, and the rig drives
it for you while the light goes down. Driving speed is the game's, and it is
a slow one on purpose: a loaded rig does about 20 mph on a Forest Service road, 25 on the
graded ones, 5 to 10 where the agency's own maintenance level says high clearance, and
about 35 on the roads that lead up to the forest.
Let it run: while the rig is driving itself, the route strip has a Let it run ×1
button. Each tap runs it faster, ×4 and then ×12, and the next tap is back to ×1. It compresses the time you spend, never the journey: the same miles are
driven, the same daylight and fuel are spent, every junction is turned and every camp you
pass is passed. Touch the wheel and it is real time again.
Make camp: when you are standing at a recorded campsite a Make camp
button appears. That card is the point of the whole game: what the record actually says
about sleeping there — whether anybody charges and on what evidence, how long you may
stay, what the land manager posts, where the water is and how far — and, where the
record says nothing, that it says nothing. Then you settle in, the night passes, and the sun
comes up when it really does. In the morning the card can leave a tent and a fire ring
standing, to hold the site while you are away.
Prove it to yourself:Self Drive also shows the latitude and longitude the
rig is standing on this second, worked out by inverting the same projection this world was
built with, and a link that opens that exact patch of ground from the air in a new tab. Same
road, same bend, somebody else's photograph.
Walk: the Walk button gets you out of the rig to look at a site on foot.
Stuck?Help is on the bottom row (on a phone, inside More), so nothing about how to
play is more than one or two taps away while you are out there. The ? key opens it too.
Clock: the light is the real sun for this ground and today's date. The Clock button
lets you move the hour to see the evening come in. It is also where the
glowing route and camp beacons are explained at length — the bright route band on the
ground and the beams over the sites are the only things here that are not the photograph,
and in broad daylight they look like it. The switch itself is the Glow rocker on
the hood, a button on this panel, a rocker in Self Drive, and the G key —
one switch, four places to reach it, never out of step. Off, it takes the names over the
sites with it, so nothing stands in the road while you drive; the route strip and the
distance to your goal stay, so you never lose your way.
Mouse look is optional, and off: press the L key and the game takes the mouse the
way a PC game does, so you can swing the view without going to an edge of the picture. Your cursor
vanishes while it is on; Esc or L gives it back, and the page says so on screen the
whole time it is on. It never turns itself on.
More of the picture: on a computer, More on the bottom row opens a small panel with
Back up, Map this spot, Clock, Hide names, Hide bars,
Full screen and Title; Esc or More again puts it away. Hide bars puts the
top strip and the bottom row away while you drive. The clock and Help and More stay in
the two corners. Show bars brings them back,
one tap. This device remembers which you chose for next time. Full screen is on this
page and on the picture, and the button says how to leave it. An iPhone will not let a page
go full screen. Add the game to your Home Screen and it opens with no browser bars.
Red screen (night eyes): playing at a real camp at night? Press the R key, or
use the one line in Help once the game has started (Auto, then Help; on a
phone, More, then Help). It turns the whole screen deep red on black and dims
the forest, so it does not spoil your night vision. This device remembers it. Lower the
phone’s own brightness too: the page cannot make red dimmer than the words need to stay
readable.
Its actual elevation from the USGS, its actual aerial
imagery draped on top, the sun where the sun really is right now.
The hills are the USGS 3DEP elevation model, at about ten metres a step. The
picture on them is USGS NAIP aerial photography. Trees are drawn where the photograph
shows canopy — except in a road, because a road is a cleared corridor and nothing woody
stands in one; the road map decides that, not the photograph. On the roads the agency's own
maintenance level calls high clearance there is the occasional trunk down across the way.
That trunk is decoration: no record anywhere names a fallen tree. So is the grain of the
ground under your wheels (dirt, gravel, rock), painted on by slope and colour.
The photograph says
where things are; nothing else here is a fact about the place. Where the record says
nothing, this page says nothing.
Where to sleep tonight — pick one and it drives you
Each line carries the record’s own cost verdict and the miles
by the roads the federal map draws. Tap a name to read what the record says before you spend the
daylight getting there. The trees, the fallen logs and the truck are ours; About the
game says exactly what is real here and what is not. You only see this card the first time
you arrive in a forest. How to play and this list are behind the Auto button any
time you want them.
Every fact on this card is read from the record of the place. Nothing here is typed
by hand. The road miles are measured along the roads the federal map draws; how long they take is
this game's driving speed for that class of road, not a claim about the place.
Closed to motor vehicles today
The closure and its dates are the Forest Service’s own record. The gate is
this game’s drawing of it: the record does not say what stands at the road. The map governs
motor vehicles, so on foot you can go on.
The elevation is the USGS lidar’s. The summits are the named peaks in
the USGS Geographic Names record, the nearest few this game can see from here. That this is the
highest spot on the mapped roads open today is this game’s own finding from the ground model:
no record calls it a viewpoint. Where the top of a road is level, it picked the spot that looks out
over the most open ground, and trees are not counted in that view.
Stuck
Every minute and every odd on this card is this game’s, not the record’s.
The road and how the agency rates it are the record’s. Close this and the rig is still
stuck: press drive, or Air down (in Auto, or in More on a phone), to bring the card back.
The ford
The crossing is this game’s set piece. The water’s name and how far it is from the camp are the
record’s; the depth, the odds and every minute here are this game’s numbers. Close this and you are still at the
ford: the route is still drawn, and Drive it carries on.
Before you settle in
The minutes on these lines are this game's numbers, not a measurement. Tick what you want. A line you skip costs nothing.
The cost verdict, the stay limit, the rules, the water and the distances above are
read from this site's own record and nothing else. Where it says the record is silent, the record
is silent — and that is not the same as permission. The fuel and the water in the rig are
this game's numbers, and every line that shows one says so.
A shared night
What the record says about this camp
The cost verdict, the water and the season are read from this site’s own record.
Where it says the record is silent, the record is silent. The sky is computed for the date and
place, for a clear sky. The hour and the fire came in the link: they are the game of whoever sent
it, not a report about the place.
The clock
The sun is drawn where it really is for this ground. Move the hour to watch the evening come in.
The glowing route, the camp beacons and the site names
They are drawn right now. The bright band
along your route and the beams standing over the campsites are the only things here that are
not the photograph, and in daylight they look like it. Switch them off and the forest is just
the forest. The names over the sites go with them, so nothing stands in the road while you
drive. The route strip, the distance and arrow to your goal, and the Self Drive list all
stay, so you never lose track of where anything is. The same switch is the Glow rocker on
the hood.
The rig’s headlights
They are off right now. A wide, shallow
pool of light about 78 metres ahead of the bumper, and almost nothing past it — which is
what a real low beam on a forest road gives you, and why driving the backcountry after dark is
a decision rather than a free extra hour. At 20 mph that beam is eight seconds of warning. They
are aimed the way the rig is pointed, not the way you are looking, so you can look out
of the side window and the light stays on the road. In daylight they do almost nothing, because
in daylight they really do almost nothing. Keyboard: H.
Work lights
They are off right now. Floods about 14 metres
around the rig, and a pair of ditch lights at the front corners aimed out to the sides of the
road. Separate from the headlights, and still on when you get out to make camp. These are this
game’s lights, not a measurement of any real truck. In daylight they do almost nothing.
Keyboard: J.
Head lamp
It is on right now. The lamp you wear on your
forehead when you step out of the rig. It is a narrow, warm-white beam that goes where you look,
lights the ground, the trunks, the rocks and the truck out to about 16 metres, and swings a
little as you walk. It comes on by itself when you get out after dark, and it stays dark by day,
because by day it really does almost nothing. It is not on in the cab or while you sit by the
fire. On the Red screen it turns red. This is this game’s lamp, not a measurement of
any real one. Keyboard: K.
With them off, a mapped road at night is as dark as the ground beside it, because
that is what it is: the mapped roads you follow by day are gravel, dirt and asphalt, not paint. The
glowing band along your route is the one thing that still shows in the dark, and that
one is a marker this game draws for you — the switch above turns it off.
Sound
The sound is off.(or press V)The
driver is Dave, and a few times a day a short line of his shows above the controls. The ones he has
recorded play out loud when the sound is on. The words on screen show either way. The engine,
gravel and wind are this game’s sounds, made in the browser. The fire is a recording of a real campfire
(public domain). None of it is a recording of any real place in this game.
Plan a night
Tap one to set the clock to its best hour and look up at it. Like moving the hour
above, it throws away the time you have spent. Invite someone sends a link that opens that
night at the camp you are at, or the nearest one.
Self Drive
Pick a drive and this window shuts behind you.
Where to — pick one and it drives you
Logbook
The squares: ■ free by the record’s word, □ a fee,
◇ unpriced, ? no cost verdict in the record. The second line: ▲ you stopped before
dark, ● after dark. One of each for every night, oldest first. No camp, date or place is in
them.
Field notes: things this game saw you do
Your nights, newest first
Carry this season to another browser
Each camp’s name and cost word are read from this forest’s record every
time this card opens. The light, the fire, the miles and what the rig carried are this
game’s numbers. This logbook lives in this browser only: it is never sent anywhere, and
clearing this browser’s site data clears it.
The season’s end
Next spring
Field notes you earned
Where the date comes from
The camp’s dates and the road’s are the record’s own, quoted as it
gives them. When a season ended is this game’s reading of them, or your choice to head
home. Field notes are things this game saw you do; none is a fact about a place. Starting a new
season keeps this one, and your field notes, behind it.
Map
A mapped road
A road you have driven
Closed today by the Motor Vehicle Use Map
Free,
Fee,
Unpriced,
no cost verdict,
by the record’s word. Filled where you have slept.
A tent holding a site
You, pointing the way you face
On the Red screen the cost colours cannot show, so every camp is drawn the same.
Tap one to read what the record says about its cost.
Tap a camp to open its record. The roads are the USGS map
with the Forest Service’s numbers joined on; the camps stand where the record puts them. Which roads you
drove is this game’s note of you, kept in this browser only, beside your logbook; clearing
the logbook clears them too.
Picture makes a card of this season to share or save: the map with the
roads you drove inked and the camps you slept at, then your nights and miles from the
logbook. No other camp, no tent, no arrow for where you are, and no latitude or longitude
goes on it. It is made on this page and sent nowhere until you share it.
Help
We want you to experience our national forests overland style. The ground, the
roads, the campsites and tonight’s sky are rebuilt from real records and real-time data, and the hills
from the real topography.
You are managing time.The sun sets in this forest today.
In Self Drive you can run the clock at ×4 or ×12. It is fun to cruise the forest at ×12, but
the clock runs ×12 too: the sun goes down twelve times as fast. A mile costs the same daylight and fuel
at any speed.
The keys this game uses
A lit key does something in the game. A dim key does nothing.
Everything below is about the page. Apart from the sunset time above, which is worked out
for this forest, nothing on this card is a claim about a real place — those live on the campsite
cards, and they come from the record.
Look aroundOn a computer, move the mouse toward an edge of the picture and the
view turns that way, faster the farther out you go; the middle holds still, and over a button or a card it
stops. Dragging the picture also looks around, with a finger or the mouse. Nothing takes your cursor away
from you unless you ask it to.
Name a far ridgeTap a ridge or peak on the far horizon and the page names it,
with its height and how far away it is, from the federal place-name record (the USGS GNIS). Where the record
has no name there, it says so. A tap that moves is a look around, not a tap.
DriveHold the big Hold this down button along the bottom, or hold
W or the up arrow. The rig steers toward wherever you are looking.S or the down arrow backs up.
ThumbstickOn a touch screen, put your left thumb on the lower-left of the
picture and a ring appears under it. Push up to walk or drive, down to back up, sideways to
steer the rig (on foot, to turn you). Let go and you stop. Your right thumb still drags to
look around. Up and down do what W and S do, so the rig drives at the same speed. The Stick
switch in Self Drive turns it off.
Compass bandThe strip under the top bar shows which way you are facing.
On foot it also has a Rig button, and with a fire lit a Fire button, each with how far
away it is. One that points off the edge has an arrow for the way to turn. Tap Rig to walk
back to camp: you stand about 10 feet from the rig (further back only if the rig and the fire will
not both fit the picture), facing them, and the clock moves on by that walk at this game’s
walking pace. Tap Fire to turn and face it.
Sign at a forkDriving by hand, slow down near a place where mapped roads
meet and a plate under the compass band names each road leaving it, from the road map: the Forest
Service number and name, its maintenance level where the map has one, and the first campsite on
record down it with the road miles to get there. It goes away when you drive on, and does not come
back at that fork for a few minutes. It stays away on foot, in Self Drive and while a card is open.
The sign is this game’s; what is on it is the road map’s.
Go to a campsiteThe Auto button opens Self Drive: every
recorded site on this tile with its road miles. Say Drive me there and the rig drives
it for you along the real mapped roads while the light goes down. Touch the wheel and you
have it back.
Get there fasterWhile it is driving itself, the route strip at
the top has Let it run ×1; tap it for ×4, then ×12. That compresses the time you spend, never the
journey: the same miles, the same daylight, the same fuel.
Make campStanding at a recorded site, a
Make camp button appears. That card is the point of the game: what the record
actually says about sleeping there — and where it says nothing, that it says
nothing. Not ready for bed? Stay up and enjoy the evening on that card puts you on foot
at camp with the clock at real time, and the same button reads Turn in until you do. In
the morning it can leave a tent and a fire ring standing, to hold the site while you are away.
The lightIt is the real sun for this ground and today's date.
The Clock button moves the hour so you can watch the evening come in, and it is
where the glow, the headlights, the work lights and the headlamp are explained.
WalkThe Walk button gets you out of the rig to look at a
site on foot. The rig stays parked where you left it. The same button, now reading
Back in the rig, puts you back at the wheel. After dark you wear a headlamp
out there, a narrow beam where you look; K turns it off.
If you have a keyboard
Everything above works with a finger. These are extras, not requirements.
Esc or L
Get your cursor back.L takes the mouse the way a PC game does (Mouse look),
which hides the cursor, and while it is hidden nothing on screen can be pressed. Two keys give it
back on purpose: getting out must never depend on one of them working. You never need it to look
around; the mouse near an edge of the picture does that.
W or ↑
Drive forward. The rig steers toward wherever you are looking.
S or ↓
Back up.
AD or ←→
Steer the rig. On foot they step you sideways instead — on foot you turn by
looking.
Shift
On foot, move faster.
E
Get out and walk. Press it again to get back in the rig where you parked it.
C
Self Drive: the campsite list and the switches.
B
The logbook: every night you have slept in this forest.
M
The map: this forest’s roads, the ones you have driven, your camps and where you are.
T
The clock, the sunset, and where the glow and the headlights are explained.
?
This card.
G
The glow: the bright band along your route, the beams over the campsites and the names over
them. The same as the Glow rocker on the hood.
N
The campsite names, on their own. The same as Hide names in More.
V
The sound, on and off: the engine, the gravel and the wind. By the fire it turns the crackle on
and off with them. The same as Turn the sound on on the clock card.
H
The headlights.
J
The work lights: floods around the rig and ditch lights out to the sides. Separate from
the headlights. The same as the Work lights rocker.
K
The headlamp you wear on foot: a narrow beam where you look, after dark. It comes on by itself
when you get out of the rig at night. The same as the Head lamp rocker.
R
Red screen (night eyes), for playing at night: deep red on black, and the forest dimmed
and tinted red, so the screen does not spoil your night vision. The same as the Red screen
line at the foot of this card.
P
Name the ridge or peak in the middle of the picture, from the federal place-name record. The same as
tapping a far ridge with a finger.
Esc
Shuts whatever card is open, and stops the rig driving itself.
Why those letters: A and D steer, so neither of them was ever free
for anything else. That is the honest reason C opens the campsite list and T opens
the clock rather than something easier to remember.
Settings
Steer with the mouse: on a computer, moving the mouse toward an edge of the
picture turns the view, and the rig steers with it. Off, you look around by dragging.
Red screen (night eyes): deep red on black, for using this at a real camp
after dark without losing your night vision. Key: R.
Washboard buzz: on gravel above 12 mph the phone buzzes in short pulses with the
hood’s shake, and a soft spot gives one thud. Off, the phone stays quiet.
Run a business near one of these forests? It can have its own AI
Business Card, a free menu-driven app about it for Grok or ChatGPT:
momatio.com/add-ai
What is real here, with the numbers — and what is not. The second half is the
more important one.
This is a game laid over a real place, and the real place is doing nearly all of the
work. So here is the confession, in two halves: what you are looking at that is a measurement of
the world, and what you are looking at that we made up. A page that printed only the first half
would be a lie about the second.
What is real, and how we know
What is not real — the confession
Go and check us
Two links, and between them they are the whole argument. Dave’s words for why
they matter: being able to pull the spot up on a map and the campsite up on its own page
“really brings it all home”.
Real right now
What on this screen comes from a record, and how old that record is.