Upcoming Projects

    I came up with a logo for Adventurer's Project.  The green, of course, stands for greenery and the yellow stands for the sun.  The latter is very important because it gets hot here in Far SE Ohio, which our area includes 40 miles of the Buckeye Trail (North Country concurrent) in the Marietta Unit of the Wayne National Forest (The Wayne).  Hikers often underestimate their water consumption here.  And on the North Country Trail, it mostly stays above the 42nd parallel.  We're at about 39°N and our summers are more like Kentucky and Tennessee.  North Country is more like Vermont, New York State, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Northern Wisconsin, Northern Minnesota and North Dakota.  I'm certain they probably don't realize how hot it gets down here.

    Right now, I have some smog tubes (secondary air injection) on order for my 1987 Chevrolet G20 Sportvan.  They should be coming in tomorrow?  When I dismantled the former exhaust pipes, I realized that there was weakness in one of the exhaust manifold bolt holes.  Rather than wait for it to give way, I decided to replace the manifolds.  I have those now.  But I wasn't going to mess with trying to unbolt the smog tubes.  I'd probably round out their bolts if I tried and still not get them out?  I have new exhaust manifold gaskets, so this is going to be a complete replacement.

    The forest service has us doing some rather extensive modifications to the trail in The Wayne.  For one, every stream crossing needs to have ramps benched on both sides.  Benching is a part of trail maintenance where we have to widen, or re-establish the trail's tread, or the surface that you hike on.  More notibly, if you hike up a grade, that's "pitch."  But when building a trail, when the trail builders come across a hillside, but in the other dimension, leveling that out by benching, that's the "roll."  It has to be maintained every few years or so because of erosion.  And our off-road trail is so backcountry and narrow that it has to be done by hand manually with mattocks and Pulaski axes.

    The off-road in The Wayne for the most part was originally designed and built for the North Country Trail from 1983 to 1987.  By word of mouth, the NCTA struggled with getting maintainers from 1987 to 1997.  My impression is that for about 35 miles of off-road, they were working with about 4 volunteers if I had to guess.  10 miles of off-road per trail maintenance volunteer is 3x more than any one volunteer should ever have.

    There was a North Country Trail Association chapter in this area, but it was short lived.  The Buckeye Trail Association took over the maintenance and some of the routing administration in 2000.  But it took them about 5 years just to get the trail opened back up by mostly minimum standards.  So, I think I have to assume that some of the benching hasn't been maintained in 30 something years?

    In addition to being the lead for Adventurer's Project, I'm also the volunteer Section Supervisor for the Whipple Section - Buckeye Trail (North Country concurrent), which is the south of what the project supports in this region.  My two biggest projects are in the ballpark of the present day Whipple Section, Point 03/ Big Run Rd/ Township Rd 414 in Independence Township and Point 05/ Brooks by McCain Hill & Bean Ridge Roads to Point 06/ Brooks by Cow Run Roads in Lawrence Township, both of Washington County, Ohio.  

    The trail in The Wayne has a mountain bike concurrency, but that's by no means unusual for Distance Hiking Ohio.  With the tasks that need to be completed, there are some hiking related safety issues to iron out.  But what I see in it with the mountain bikers is something cooperative and diplomatic.  The hiking world really doesn't understand, or doesn't fully understand when I get like this.  I have no idea if this will work, but I am sure that it won't if we don't try.

    In the ballpark of Whipple 03/ Big Run Road, I've been working to the east of there so far.  And the trail ascends up to the top a ridge, where it's roll has been leveled along it's side.  But it wasn't well built.  Another BTA volunteer and I had to use our Pulaski axes to chop away the south side embankment to widen the trail.  Then i came up to an area with a 500lb boulder sticking out of it and a big slip on the other side.  With authorization from the forest service, I either have to do extensive work trying to get that boulder out and repairing that deep slip, or I'll have to reroute the trail within 50ft of the original?  And in order to know if I can reroute it, I'll have to approach the area from the opposite direction to know for sure?  If it's unattennable, then we'll have to work with what we've got.

    Whipple 05 - 06/ the Brooks Rd area features the Little Muskingum River Flats where the trail right next to the river in it's flood plane..  You could say that this place is in the Sitka, Moss Run and Dart areas of Washington County, Ohio.  It has five distinct features to it.  There's the East and West Highlands, Embankments - East & West and then there's the flats in the middle of it all.  The West Flats are no problem.  But the east end gets narrow.  The river embankment gets tight and wedges the trail against it and the river.  We're having erosion problems on the river's side of the trail and we need to reinforce that bank with some boulders and rocks.  But the boulders and rocks have been washed out to  a point at the start of the west end, which is a mile away.  That's a long way to haul heavy loads, especially during COVID-19.  But I think I might be able to do it with a wheel barrel if I bench ramps  into 3 stream crossings down there first?  I estimate that I alone could haul 6 loads to the site.  But the problem is that there's nowhere to stage piles of rocks and boulders out there, so every time a load is delivered, the boulders have to be set then.  I think that's going to impede the "assembly line" if you would?  The good news is that one of my forest service liaisons and I did some work on this site last year.  And the high side embankment was easy to bench.

      On the project's side of things, COVID-19 has made in-person trail promotion rather unattennable.  i was supposed to execute a project that could strengthen some of our weaker areas, but considering the people still wearing face masks and complying with state recommendations, it's not worth the fuel or time right now?  Regardless of anyone's particular persuasion, it's just a really bad time and conversation over it for these purposes are an utter waste of time.  From my end of these, we just have no choice but to ride this out in other ways.  I suppose that since I don't know this area too well, that walking through these towns, villages and cities to get a rough feeling of what they're all about could be a good idea?  And I could possibly engage people, say one at a time?

Geo Photo Catalog

It might be 9 days before I can continue Adventurer's Project's "Geo Photo Catalog."  It has several applications.

Application #1: A photographic record of the trail to educate Buckeye Trail Association volunteers and a reference for future maintenance needs.

Application #2: Produce photos for trail adopter procurement.

Application #3: Social media content.  The photos will be released about 3 at a time in between other posts and help with fresh content during the cold days.

Application #4: Photos for Adventurer's Project's website.

Application #5: Pictures for trail promotion and volunteer procurement.

Application #6: Determine where we need to take pictures with better cameras.  Those photos can be used for trail promotion, the website and social media.

Adventurer's Project supports the Road Fork and Whipple Sections of the Buckeye Trail (North Country concurrent) in Noble, Monroe, Washington and Morgan Counties of Ohio.  The photos are taken about every 50yds or less in both directions.  Currently, the photos are being taken at my smartphone's highest possible quality.  As this region's off-road total is about 40 miles, it should produce over 2,600 photos.  That's far more than Buckeye and North Country's hikers have produced at the moment. 

On-road portions have been recorded via video with spoken locations from an automobile.  Aside from that, Google Street View covers some of this area.  So at this point, it's mostly about photographing about 40 miles of off-road paths on foot.  And I'm earning my 2020 North Country Trail 100 Mile Challenge, which I've missed other challenges like this in previous years.

The "geo" part pertains to enabling my smartphone camera's "locator" to produce geotags.  This process embeds the location of where the photo was taken into the properties of the file.  From there, software can be used to extract their coordinates and then embed them into placemarks into a Google KML/ KMZ file.  In terms of the maintenance record, volunteer users can follow the photos, particularly with the GIS/ GPS track of the Road Fork and Whipple Sections.  So, this is to see the trail's line with the photos on an application like Google Earth and probably ArcGIS products?

In previous years, the camera locator was on by default.  But I like to refer to geotags as "creeper tags."  It's unfortunate because people were physically followed by others when they downloaded their pictures and had the geotags extracted.  They could tell by the days of the week when they took their kids to karate class for instance.

But recently, to enable the geotag feature, there are two safeties.  One is that the phone's locator must be enabled.  When it is, this is what enables the smartphone's mapping and navigation.  The second step is to enable the locator a second time, but in the camera app's settings.  I find it to be a wonderful tool for the trail, but I tend to use it wisely.  As of the time of this post, geotags are automatically stripped by Facebook, but not by every social media company.  Presently, Adventurer's Project is only on Facebook and no other social media service due to insufficient manpower to admin more.

At last count, it takes about 1 hour to photograph 2 miles of off-road footpath here in what I call "Far SE Ohio," which is in the Appalachian Foothills.  That's that's about 4 times faster than it takes to initially blaze (painted navigational markers) one.  But still, the "stop and go" is harder on my body and I haven't scheduled this photographing over 7 round trip miles yet.

So, that just about sums up Adventurer's Project's Geo Photo Catalog.

Adventurer's Project and the I-70 Corridor

Some Buckeye Trail Association (BTA) chapters work on consensus only and they do what they either feel like, or what they can agree on. But they way that I lead Adventurer's Project is with more of an addenda.  In other words, I'm much more top down.

Trail promotion with the project has been with the intention of gaining more volunteers, or lately, it's been for volunteer procurement.  But with the others, it's been for getting more hikers.  Our neighbor to the west is hardly functional at present. And our neighbor to the north has had paid Facebook ads for their "likes," but their approach was statewide, instead of more local like us.  As a result, we can ask them to post Noble County, Ohio events, but they have yet to develop the audience for them along the I-70 corridor between Zanesville, Ohio and Wheeling, West Virginia.

We have a very good reason to need such an audience and that is we have a supporter in Caldwell of Noble County, Ohio who offers us an event space for free so far with food and drink nearby.

Buckeye Trail Chapters have this "if you live closer" to such a section, then you should belong to such a chapter.  Adventurer's Project has to honor those statements, so the I-70 Corridor is outside of our coverage area.

We have, however, had donated Facebook ads for page likes up there. And the way its going to be handled is we need to do it to secure our own needs for events in Noble County.  When it comes to chapter side involvement, depending on where the participant lives, the project may need to refer them to their local chapter first. However, if the participant insists, then we'll take them as our chapterside supporters.  But for the most part, what Adventurer's Project promotes for on the I-70 corridor is for event participants and more hikers on the sections that we cover.

Adventurer's Project's Facebook Promotion Ratios

I was about to state that Adventurer's Project's donated Facebook promotions were lagging behind on the east side of The Wilderness Loop per capita compared to the Marietta/ Parkersburg, WV areas.  But then I had a look at the record of all promotions that the Facebook page, or events have had and have and that's simply not accurate.

On the south side of the loop where Marietta (Ohio), Vienna and Parkersburg, West Virginia are, it has a ratio of 1 Facebook like per every 1,070.25 residents.  The ratio of the east side which centers around communities like Woodsfield, Ohio and Moundsville, New Martinsville and St. Marys, West Virginia has a ration of 1:1,537.3.  But that's only with one promotion.

So, we're doing alright considering the circumstances.  But I know one thing and that is we have one of the most remote areas in the State of Ohio.  And if we were to do better, I'd need to analyze my data to try and approach them with something else.

My car needs just about every gasket that I can think of.  My 2008 Chevy HHR LS has over 210,000 miles.  It's been a towing vehicle.  I know its needed an oil manifold gasket for quite some time.  And it definitely needs an exhaust manifold gasket and now it needs one for the timing chain.  I've got to get more out of this car, so I'm getting read to do the work myself.  My back is holding up and I'm ready to catch up with these.

Adventurer's Project - Facebook Promotion Numbers 11/29/2018

I spent $9.88 of my own money to promote Adventurer's Project's Facebook page.  Facebook gave me a rock bottom deal of $1 per day and I took it for 10.  They just reported that I reached 2,124 people and we got at least 1 new like out of it.  Adventurer's Project now has 34 supporters.  All but about 5 of them have unknown intentions still.

If Facebook's numbers were right, then this was probably worth while.  I set the promotion to concentrate over the Moundsville and New Martinsville areas of West Virginia.  New Martinsville is about 25 miles from the Walter Ring House and Mill Site near Graysville of Washington County, Ohio.  Right now, I'm willing to commit $30 a month to Facebook advertising.

Priority 1 Maintenance

While I don't have jurisdiction over much of this, the Road Fork Section, Points 27 (7/2011 map & guide) to 31, perhaps out to Whipple 03 should have the 1st trail maintenance.  And this should take place before June 30th annually.  The reason is that we have an economic cooridor between these points.  I say perhaps Whipple 03 because Points 01 - 03 are not a very popular destination.  And that segment has an adopter who usually comes in July.  I supervise that section, but that segment is something that I shouldn't touch.  Probably the most that I can do is hike through and collect waypoints on downed trees so that my NFS point of contact can cut them?

From the time of the ground thawing to May 31 is the most ideal time for benching.  This is the physical widing of the trail's tread with a mattock axe.  It's typically done on a hillside.  I must say that I have no idea what condition my lower back will be in by that time?

At the moment, I have to get in control of my own finances. I'm projecting that January 1st will the be the first time my budget can properly reset and get straightened out? At the previous board meeting, we're not getting any back up.  But I didn't request any.  The BTA has enough on it's plate and I've decided that we're going to go it alone. And it's becoming imperative that we start becoming more independent locally.

This is where January comes into play.  I'm going to use it for trail promotion, but I'm not ready to publically state where, when or how?

Scouting Moundsville and Buckeye TrailFest on Adventurer's Project's Internet Media

I couldn't stand staying home any longer. So I went to Moundsville, WV to scout it.  I think it's going to be harder to break into with trail promotion for Adventurer's Project, but it does have a Dunham's sporting goods store there.  At the moment, I'm thinking that we may have to break into this market by way of Wheeling, WV?

The Buckeye TrailFest committee has given me the go ahead to promote that event on Adventurer's Project's Internet media.  That's good because the website has a lot of dead space.

Laptop Hard Disk Space

I wanted to resume work on my trail promotion routes for Adventurer's Project, but I noticed that my hard disk drive was almost full.  So, I got a pie chart and there was 500GB of back-up files on there.  Apparently, some must have made their way over from The Robot, or my back-up location.  I deleted them and I hope that the laptop's on-board software aren't installing them there?

Geotagged Trail Promotion Photos 08/29/2018

I spent some time today re-organizing Adventurer's Project's data. When I was on trail promotion two days ago, I took some geotagged photos of the various cork boards and rack card/ brochure posting opportunities to replace the icons at those locations. The photos were exported to Google Earth Pro and are overlaid with just about any of my previous data. Those photos have more information than just the icons. It displays its size and measures its traffic.

PIcasa & Google Earth

I've always used Picasa to embed photos into waypoints in Google Earth.  But Picasa has been discontinued for years.  I found a download for it, imported my photos, but it needed a previous version of Google Earth, the free version to work.  When Google Earth 7.0 opened up, I see it found my My Places from Pro.  I sure hope it didn't taint my original work?

But I got my geotags to work.  As far as trail promotion, there are only 60 of them.  If there were more, I'm sure that they are lost?

River's, Trail's and Trail's Expo

Yesterday, Adventurer's Project was being promoted at the Rivers, Trails and Ales (RTA) Expo in Marietta of Washington County.  I was there from 6 - 8pm.  Adventurer's Project picked up 2 new supporters, there were those who came by that have already covered the trails and I spoke to a few people.

Need to have support in order to get support?  Trail promotion has been a chicken and the egg like problem lately.  At the moment, many things look like we just need to increase our base of support and that flier deployment seems like the inescapable answer?

Trail Promotion Routes and Total Mileage

Adventurer's Project's flier, rack card and brochure routes are split into 6 so far and total at 627 miles.  It's probably unlikely that we'll cover them all in the short term?

American Discovery Trail Promotion, Similarities, My Profile

I got permission to promote the American Discovery Trail at any of Adventurer's Project's events until December 1st from the president of the American Discovery Trail Society.  Ever since I've been in trail promotion, I've been corresponding with their Facebook group regularly.  The circumstances of Adventurer's Project are less like anywhere else on the Buckeye Trail and more like those on the American Discovery.

We hardly have any volunteers in this area.  American Discovery has never needed to count theirs.  The Buckeye Trail Association has assured me that there is next to nobody on their membership roster in this area.  I'm sure that the ADTS's is smaller, too.  Where Buckeye has chapters, the ADTS has state committees.  As far as I know, they really haven't been very organized yet.  So, I'm letting them learn from my successes and failures.

Recently, I unfriended some people from my personal Facebook profile.  The reason is that these people were on it so I could write about the Whipple Section at more length.  Now that Adventurer's Project has it's own page, I posted a link to it on my profile for about a week.  I just wanted to have my personal life back.  I don't want my personal views to reflect how I do business with the trails.  And so far, I just don't think that some people understand how structured I am and how necessary that is for me to sustain life?  Without structure, I am a mess.

Today, I uploaded the Buckeye, North Country and American Discovery Trail GPS tracks to my tablet. I'm not sure if I'm going to have my laptop at outdoor trail promotion events anymore?  The setting sun started heating up it's case and I can't afford to fry it's CPU at the moments.  The good thing about the tablet and the smartphone is that I can get them out of the sun easier and take them out when needed.

I'm Diverted

I've been plenty diverted here. Trail promotion for Adventurer's Project is a whole other animal.  There needs to me two of me here.

I advertised the Road Fork/ Whipple Work Week on Adventurer's Project's Facebook page and the Buckeye Trail Association's group today. So far, we have four RSVP's and possibly 4 others.  I'd really like to get some of the trail photographed and geotagged this year. Adventurer's Project's internet media really needs them.  And we also need a photo for the new Road Fork and Whipple maps.

What to Do Near Road Fork Section 05/19/2018

Last week, I was securing my project's place at the Backhome Appalachian Arts & Music Festival for us to do some trail promotion at the Wetzel County Convention & Visitors Bureau in New Martinsville, WV.  When I was at the CVB, I got a copy of their visitors guide.  Our 2nd priority is increasing the foot traffic on our portion of the Buckeye Trail (North Country concurrent).  Our corner of the trail is just about the furthest place for most of Buckeye Trail hikers to drive to.  When I show up to TrailFest for just one day and drive back to Painesville, they sometimes look at me like I'm crazy.  So, judging by that, I think it's logical to assume that they might prefer to overnight in the area.

The question that I try to answer is what are they going to do when they're here.  Most of them are not going to hike an entire summer's day.  They might want to get out and do something?  But it's a double edged sword too as this might give me clues as to where I can post a flier, or lay down rack cards and brochures?

I know volunteers who maintain a segment because it's their place to get away and find peace.  But that doesn't speak for me.  And if everything that I've gone through in the last 3 years doesn't result in a sizable increase in the annual numbers on our extent of the trail, then everything that I've gone through is in vain.  The BTA can give us a Work Week, North Country can send weed whackers and DR mowers all they like.  But in the end, those bodies are the only thing that matters.

Record: Trail Promotion Venue Request

An email was sent to the Wetzel County Convention and Visitors Bureau in West Virginia requesting a recommendation on a trail promotion venue.

Trail Promotion, Geotagged Photos

Off-road trail segments often need maintenance 3 times annually. And 1/3rd of any segment needs to be reblazed in that time. When I was a trail adopter, at first, I lived 29 miles from my segment. It was pretty easy to get to. But after I moved, I was 65 miles from it then and found it to be much more difficult. It was still doable, but I wouldn't want to be much further. This is why in trail promotion, I use a 65 mile standard. In all thoroughness, my #1 goal is volunteer recruitment (instead of exposure and membership). So, I want to know how far I can possibly push it and I think that 65 miles is it.

In all of this GPS mapping that I've done, I've created a map with 130 mile corridor polygons. These are shapes with unlimited sides that has the trail's track running through the middle. I did mine "as the crow files" to save time, so a location on the edge of the polygon will still need to be checked and be within 65 miles driving distance. With that all being written, it creates a quick reference for me to determine if a event is worth promoting at.  

Unmanned promotion??? Well somebody has to put up a flier or lay brochures and cards down. This might not be as effective as a manned table or booth, so a volunteer would need to do these in great number. With a polygon like this, the post offices, libraries and another other opportunities could be mapped. And from there, routes can be devised. Of those other opportunities, I take "geotagged" photos of them with my Android based smartphone. To do this, the "Locater" needs to be enabled. This is the one that enables GPS navigation. Then in the camera app -> Settings (gear icon)-> Locater Tag needs to be set to "on." This is like a double safety. When your done geotagging photos, you might want to switch the "Locater Tag" to "off." This is something you might want to do if you could be followed in-person. The whole point of this is to snap the photo and go. By way of freeware (software that is free), those photos will tell you where a cork board (for instance) is and also how large it is. All those photos being taken in the zone will add to the trail promotion routes. What the freeware does is it extracts the geotag from the photo file and gives you the option to save embedded photos in a Google Earth KML File. How to share geotagged photos? Well, in Google Earth, they read as an embedded waypoint and the photo is the one stored on the hard drive. Everybody's "My Documents" directory is a little different. Sharing could be made easier if the photos that were geotagged were stored in a directory like "C:/(trail)/(section)." From there, other users would download everything from an e-mail attachment and be instructed to put it in this directory. That way everybody has the same file system. And no matter who's computer it's on, Google Earth will read everything.

Fliers Up In Marietta

I put up fliers for Tomfoolery's "Buckeye Trail Talk" on the 19th in Downtown Marietta and the east end lodging.  I'm afraid that I'm not very organized about it.  The thought of everything everything usually slows me down.  I'm not even sure what I'm doing tomorrow?

Log 03/23/2017

I just extracted the off-road track on 7 of 26 sections.  It's been going a little slower today.  But I found new transit off of Scioto Trail Section, Point 09 from Ahoy Transport, LLC out of Vinton County.  The only problem is that the hiker would have to walk 3.0 miles on US-50.  That would reach a radio tower on Dixon Mill Rd.  While I don't suppose the vehicle would pull in.  But it's on a lesser used road and the radio tower is just a good landmark.

After learning that the Buckeye Trail Association could have some differences in accounting map mileages, and it may be possible that either their's or my data is off, I went ahead and tallied it's total mileage.  Pay close attention to the date of this log.  Buckeye Trail re-routes often.  With my maps and tracks being as updated as possible, I my data shows the trail's total length to be 1,445.21 miles with an average section track variance of +0.0504 miles beyond the Map Team's numbers.  If I were to continue to back down the tracks to make mile markers, in the past, I've only done it with a variance of +/- 0.2 miles per section.

Digital mile markers could help prospective hikers.  Along with parking, camping, lodging data all in one place, there'd be no more guess work and measuring. Planing hikes would be a snap.  My GPS tracks for the BT are probably in condition now?

Digital mile markers are a lot of work, but they're worth it in the end.  And that's because in Google Earth, you have open the properties menu with the "measurements" tab up to have access and back down track.  Every time you reach a desired mileage, you have to close the menu and then put down a placemark.  In accordance with my data, on the Whipple Section, that has to be performed 58 times.  And the backing down part is what's time consuming.  You have to back space it at a controlled rate, or Google Earth could easily overshoot the mark.

In other things, I've been thinking about my 5th installment towards a Household Life Membership in the Buckeye Trail Association.  It's coming up early next month.  For the installment plan, I may have found that money orders from the US Post Office might be better than the Money Grams for other that I've been using.  Apparently, they never expire or devalue.  I have a PO Box, so I'll have to verify this soon.  There's only 10 installments, so #5 is half way.

I looks like I'll be re-building The Cramper next month.  I'm thinking about something lighter and cheaper.  But I have to go by the home improvement store to try and find a way to temporarily seal it to the tailgate frame.

Sometime in the next month or two, I need to start gathering supplies for trail promotion in SE Ohio.

Posting Trail Photos On Your Social Media Account

The people out there need relief.  At least from time to time.  Their social media can get dominated by things that disturb them.  Individually, we're all widely distributed and connected to different people. But we can contribute to their relief by posting pictures of the trails that we've been on, or volunteer for.

For those of us who are volunteers, it's probably something that we should do periodically anyways.  That's because it's a form of free trail promotion that isn't very labor intensive.   But if you end up sharing that post on the Facebook wall for a trail agency, make sure that you set the post on your profile to "public."  Otherwise, the only people who will be able to see it on the agency's wall are those of it's members that your profile is friends with.