More Mapping Fun

Today, I went to Traverse City and spent all day working with Matt Rowbotham of the North Country Trail Association. His title is GIS Program Manager. GIS=Global Information System. That means he does all the map data processing for the 4800 miles of trail. (And creating specialty maps. And being the IT guy.)

If you can see the lines and lines of text below the green map section, that is the database where all the information is stored that you see when you click on a trail segment in the interactive map.

You may remember that from time to time I've talked about collecting map data for the Adirondacks. Here's Matt, taking parts of what I've noted and tracked and adding them to the full map database.

Here's what a few miles of data look like on my phone in the Avenza map as I record it. This was a place where no one could figure out where the trail was supposed to be. It's where Marie and I went back and hiked from the other direction just before the Celebration. Now, it's close to being ready to put on the interactive map on the NCTA web site.

If anyone wonders why it takes so long to get these maps right... the choice of trail route had to be made. Since no one had previously collected GPS data for this, the first line drawn on the map was an approximation, sometimes using a basemap that shows the same trail. But that map was probably made before there was GPS. So now there are two wrong lines. If I (or anyone) collects a track of the actual trail on the ground, that gives Matt better data. But there is still error in those lines. So it's better if there are two or more tracks to create a new trail line. But even one current one is better than the non-GPS guesses. Then Matt has to get all the info in the database about important things- who owns that property, the name of the segment, water sources, permitted use, camping options, hazards, etc. It all takes time. 4800 miles is 25,344,000 feet. And we're trying to get every one of them mapped correctly.

It rained all day, but that made the leaf colors look bright. I took a few pictures on the way home.

Here's a picture of Hodenpyl Dam Pond from the rest area overlook on Rt 37.

This took all day. I didn't sleep much last night, so I'm probably about done for the day. But this was really exciting to me-- to be a serious part of the effort to make the trail discoverable in the Adirondacks.

See Map Fun