NCT Wb Mock Hiker About 80% Complete

- I finished routing my mock hiker written simulation of the North Country Trail from it's new eastern terminus at the Appalachian Trail to Mile 21.7 of the Kekebabic Trail Club in Minnesota.  The last time that I tallied up where I was with this was for Mellon, Wisconsin and that was over 3,300 miles of about 4,806.  Considering that I just got through the Superior Hiking Trail tonight, I could probably have the westbound mock hiker done tomorrow?

- I've decided that I'm only going to route the eastbound mock hiker to Stockport Section, current day Point 7/ Whipple Section, current day Point 24 - Buckeye/ North Country Trail in SE Ohio. 

- At a rate of 24 and 18 miles per day depending on the terrain and taking a zero day once every 21 days generally, I've determined that a thru hike of the North Country Trail is impossible to complete within a 210 day window.  By my independent review of the trail, North Country's length exceeds that window of execution by about 1,500 miles.  I did hear that this may be the case, but I wanted to test it myself.  Regardless, I'm familiarizing myself with the trail in hopes that I can one day anticipate North Country hiker's arrivals in SE Ohio.  I won't know this until I complete this project, but roughly, off the top of my head, it may be possible for those hikers to start at either terminus and end on Road Fork or Whipple Sections - BT/ NCT?

- What I think North Country needs is a 10 miler study.  But after this project, I'm on to doing some GIS research for American Discovery trail.

Getting Tedious

I'm working on color coding the Miscellaneous State Forest Lands of Minnesota along the North Country Trail independence, that that which is concurrent with the Kekekabic, Border Route and Superior Hiking Trails.  Mapping for me is very isolating.  My people skills start going out the window the more that I do this.  And with color coding those these miscellaneous lands, it's getting tedious and it's accumulative.

I discovered that my polygon for Superior National Forest surface properties was not displaying correctly and I had to reload it.  But that was after I started the I's and O's.  Right now, I have Superior's trails and roads loaded and I'm using them to determine if Minnesota's miscellaneous forest state lands are accessible.  If they're not, those polygons are being coded red.  I'd say that at this point, most of them will be.  But the rest that remain green will maximize the dispersed camping opportunities, which is the goal.

Minnesota is the last state that I need to do the I's and O's to.  The next step is to correct my merged tracks with the latest NCTA data.  Then I should be on to the mile markers after that.  Once the mile markers are in, I can write the mock hike written simulation and detail either an average hiker's days, or determine what it really takes to thru hike the trail end to end within the window of time alloted.

Log 2016062801

Based on the most current GPX download, I have the Superior Hiking Trail (North Country concurrent) coming in at 289.7 miles in length.   It's high point is 1,827ft above sea level in the Grand Portage State Forest, north of Jackson Lake.  The low point is about 606ft above sea level on the Duluth Waterfront.  It wasn't easy getting these.  Either Google Earth doesn't like Minnesota's arrowhead, there's something wrong with my application or their servers aren't acting right.

Log 2016062701

Merging the Superior Hiking Trail into one track shouldn't be too hard.  From what I'm seeing so far, it's on Google Maps.  The way it looks, it would need to be retracked in Google Maps Engine in thirds to have enough of those relocation circles, then merged with GPS Visualizer.  In order to save on those circles, I recommend rerouting Maps' track from both ends.

I'm testing the accuracy of my Maps route in Google Earth against Superior's GIS data.  If it doesn't match up in an area, I have Google Maps Engine in my Chrome browser with bottom of the window moved up to see the global coordinates (in decimal degrees) when Google Earth is under it.  When the area is the last thing that I hovered in in Google Earth, I keep my mouse in the same places as I press ALT + Tab on my keyboard and switch to Chrome.  That keeps the coordinates in place.

Once in chrome, I can move my mouse over the search field in Google Maps Engine and I'll type Earth's coordinates and press Enter.  When the map moves to that area, I can see if there's another trail in the area that matches the GIS's route.  If so, I'll reroute and move the track to the correct path.  When that's done, I'll save the revised route as KML to my hard drive, then open it in Google Earth and delete the incorrect track from before.

If there isn't a route on Google Maps as specified by an distance trail agency's, then I'll go back to Google Earth and delete the track anchors in between the affected points.  I'm doing this as a part of a North Country Trail project, so I like to work from east to west.  At this point, I have to redraw the correct path by hand starting in the east according to NCT's progression.  The tracks have to written in the same direction to be merged.

A rail grade on the Superior Hiking Trail (North Country Trail concurrent) appears on the map.  However Google Maps Engine won't route through it at 47.142827, -91.692487 that is north of Stewart, Minnesota.  Satellite mode revealed that there's no longer a crossing there as if the road that it was on was shut down.  If your working with this trail like I am, you'll need to get a track segment to end at it, then import it in to Google Earth and open it's properties.  Once there, you need to extend the route over the tracks by hand.