Today, I drove down towards Whipple Section - Buckeye/ North County Scenic Trail, Point 01 (as per BT's 10/2010 map & guide for the section) in hopes of re-blazing Points 01 - 02. But as I got close, I determined that the trees were too damp to do it. As I was driving on County Road 9/ C9 in Independence Township of Washington County, I spotted a hiker and came to a stop to see if he was on the BT/ NCT? Turns out that he was and that he was on C9 because the off-road trail was too slick and may be impassable for the moment.
He's a multi mode recreationalist, where he hikes, canoes and uses a bicycle. I heard about him many months ago on the Buckeye Trail's Facebook group. To those who don't know, the BT has two Facebooks. One is the "page" that is normally used by headquarters and the other is the "group," which is more like an end user driven forum. I contribute to the group on most days.
After talking to him, I turned the car around at German Cemetary Road/ Township Rd 623. As as I was aborting my mission, I came up with a second one. Mostly for my own records, I think it might be advantageous if the section's GIS/ GPS data was broken down into miles (like mile markers). Well, the BTA GIS/ GPS Depository contains a KML file that displays the trail, but its in hundreds of little baby tracks. I once took the time to organize and label mine into their respective 26 sections. But in order for them to be useful to a hiker, they have to be merged into those sections. I've done several successfully, but I've never got their total mileages down exactly in sync with what the official mileages are on the section guides.
Because Tittle Run Rd/ Twp Hwy 43 in Lawrence Township of Washington County is a four wheel drive road, I ended up having to start my test at Point 08 in Fearing Township of said county. It took over an hour to reach the Whipple Section's west terminator @ Pt. 24/ Stockport Section, Pt. 07. At the end, the trip tick on the dashboard read "40.5mi." The official measurement for that trip is "40.4mi." It's possible that both are correct if the Buckeye Trail Association's Map Team used a surveyor wheel on foot. If I was traveling generally from east to west in the right lane, my vehicle would have to make a more elaborate turn each time I turned left (generally west). Over 40 miles, it's possible that I could be off by a tenth of a mile. So, the on-road trail lines up.
But I have dependencies with the off-road trail. The number that Google Earth comes up with is 0.7mi higher for it and the total combined section length. The way that I see it, either I did something wrong during the merging, or there's something wrong with the stock tracks there? Well, there's only one way to find out and that is to get out there and measure all 14.3 miles myself on foot with the gps. I can reset the trip computer to zero miles and draw a new track for comparison with it.
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