Preface to the Proceedings of the 12th Mountain Cartography Workshop, Snow Mountain Ranch, Colorado, April 11–15, 2023

Abstract. The 12th ICA Mountain Cartography Workshop, organized by the International Cartographic Association (ICA)’s Commission on Mountain Cartography (CMC), was held April 11–15, 2023 in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Our workshops are usually held biennially, alternating with the International Cartographic Conferences (ICC). This year, however, the workshop was out of sequence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshop, originally scheduled for April 2020, was first rescheduled for April 2022, and then again for April 2023 in response to shifting pandemic conditions. By 2023, pandemic-related travel restrictions had eased and CMC members were eager to once again meet in person. Our successful gathering this year thus concluded the five years of planning that began immediately after the 2018 Hvar, Croatia workshop.

The goal of Mountain Cartography Workshops is to bring together cartographers, geographers, and others in a relaxed and beautiful mountain setting to share new developments in cartography, design, and spatial analysis related to mountain environments. Since our first workshop in 1998, the range of presentations has diversified considerably. Although the classic “Swiss-style” cartography of alpine peaks typified by the work of the late Eduard Imhof is still very important, other topics are now enthusiastically embraced. The understanding of what counts as “mountain cartography” has expanded to include every type of irregular terrain—from karst, to canyons, to hidden features on the seafloor, and even to the extraterrestrial. In these proceedings you will find contributions from academic cartographers, freelancers, government mapmakers, historians, journalists, researchers, and software developers. The breadth of contributions reinforces our contention that mountain cartography is a “big tent” discipline.

The 2023 workshop had 51 participants from Austria, France, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United States. The theme was “People, Maps, and Mountains” in order to focus on the importance of using cartography to better understand human/mountain interactions—adventure, sustainable management, travel, recreation, etc. Altogether the workshop had 40 presentations in a variety of formats, including peer-reviewed papers, technical demonstrations, group discussions, posters, and short “avalanche talks” held in the evening.

These proceedings were edited and assembled by Daniel Huffman. Our thanks go out to Daniel for this generous contribution of time, and also to the many people who anonymously reviewed papers. We hope that you find the following contents interesting and useful. We also encourage you to participate in future Mountain Cartography Workshops. The next one in Zakopane, Poland, is scheduled for April of 2024. But we have already begun planning for the 2026 workshop. Wherever it may be, we can guarantee an inspiring venue.

The 2023 workshop program, CMC business meeting notes, and other information are available on the CMC website at www.mountaincartography.org.