But once you get below well-traveled paved roads, you probably want some local knowledge because there's not a lot of mapping data that differentiated between a well-graded, good condition dirt road and a potentially seasonal road that you probably want high clearance 4WD for (and know how to use it).
[1] https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series...
> There's something called the TIGER database. [1] Of course, that needs to be populated and updated somehow and Google probably applies various corrections.
That's for the US though, it wouldn't cover Canada (though Canada probably has an equivalent).
IIRC, Google actually has a fairly large team of cartographers keeping Google Maps up to date. In addition to satellite and aerial photographs, and other maps, Google also has the benefit of Street View cars to give it on-the-ground data plus GPS tracks of customers using Google Maps on their phones.
On OpenStreetMap, there's a layer that shows all the GPS tracks that its users have uploaded, all superimposed on each other (though last I checked it hadn't been updated in some time). It's pretty easy to make out real roads from that data.
This website has some pretty good essays about Google Maps and other mapping services: https://www.justinobeirne.com/.
I have an AWD Subaru, but other than a couple spots the road would have been fine in any FWD sedan.
That's probably not the road you mentioned but nonetheless.
There are no other links, which is why even when you choose “avoid highways”, you still get put on the 99 between Squamish and Whistler, since that’s literally the only road that connects the two. You get put on some alternative backroads between Squamish and Vancouver, which are horrible to use (it was the only option at times while the 99 was being upgraded for the Olympics)
Figuratively. Technically from Whistler you can go north on 99 and then south on 12 and west on 1 and be back at Vancouver.
Plus, that's basically all highways.