We want to create a fun community that opens up the possibilities of the outdoors. And we want it to be informative and inspiring. From the beginning, our guiding principle has been to help people share their experiences. Our content is entirely community driven. You can create, explore, and make connections. Try something new. Confirm why something old will never really be old. It’s a rewarding process. We invite everyone, the traditional and the cutting edge, the young and the old. We realize that some of you will dislike that we are sharing this information. Many of us have our secret hiking trails, camping spots, and fishing pools. We believe our natural environment shouldn’t be ignored or hidden or forgotten. It should be shared and technology can help us with that. Fewer and fewer people are going outdoors and we hope that we can play a part in reversing that trend. If a journal entry inspires you to go outdoors and explore, then we have accomplished a part of what we’ve envisioned.

Journal Entries

We have chosen journal entries as the primary method of communication. We like it because it relates well to everyday life and is accessible to most people. Ultimately, you choose how you want to express yourself and that’s the beauty of it. Your entries can be like writing in a notebook or they can be like making a photo album with notes scrawled beneath. And not just pictures, maps! Yes, thanks to the proliferation of web mashups you can now visually chart and journal your adventures and share them with everyone else. But your journal entries do not need to be restricted to a specific geographic location. You could tell a tale or simply share information. For example, if you gathered information about fishing regulations in your state, you could create a journal entry to share that information. There are many possibilities. Be creative.

The Technology

Like many others out there, MyOutdoors.net is a web mashup, meaning that it uses other web services in order to implement a new one. Specifically, MyOutdoors.net leverages Google Maps to allow users to map out their activities. Other than Google Maps, we heavily use AJAX, or Asynchronous Javascript and XML. AJAX is what allows us to communicate information to the end user without constantly reloading the page. It helps provide for a smoother web experience, much like a true interactive application. As it has found widespread use recently, we chose this AJAX to help keep the outdoor community up to speed with the latest technology possible.

Who We Are

MyOutdoors.net is owned and operated by Gorges Software LLC. Alex LeClair helped us formulate a lot of the ideas. Gorges Software LLC was started by two brothers, Dale and Brian Beermann.

We both grew up in Ithaca, NY and to those of you who know about it, "Ithaca is Gorges." It is actually such an amazing place that the outdoors had a large role in our lives as children. We wouldn't really describe our family as outdoor enthusiasts, but outdoor appreciators at the very least. Many of our family activities involved mountain biking, hiking, camping, fishing, and hunting. As distance has come between us, it has become much harder to enjoy these things, which is most likely the reason we were so excited when we started talking with Alex about MyOutdoors.net. We hope that you find the site informative and useful, and if you have any questions or comments, please let us know.