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.

NCT Minnesota Mile Markers Placed

The position of the digital mile markers in Minnesota are in place.  I wasn't going to overlay the state forest maps, but I changed my mind.  Then I realized that I didn't account for Minnesota DNR's camping shelters, so I went back and cataloged those, other backpack sites and parking areas.  At that point, I determined that I needed to go back through all three national forest websites and determine if I was missing campsites and picnic areas (parking)?  Minnesota really took a while and I'm glad that it's over. 

This state was kinda hard.  All the waypoints adding up and the shapes of six MN DNR divisions and 3 national forests, plus their roads and trails was really taxing The Robot.  I'm a volunteer.  With Wisconsin and Pennsylvania remaining, the worst is over for now.  The hardest part now will be backing down the track on the North Country's concurrency with Finger Lakes.  That's a 429 mile track with frequent markers.  I'm lucky I got 429 miles to merge.  You could probably thank Finger Lake's GIS for that.  They made it snap together so well.

Data Extracted - ND, WI & MN, Relabeled C Data and Mile Markers

I extracted the trails and roads necessary to reach campsites and lodging along the North Country Trail in North Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  It was necessary for the placement of placemarks to make mile markers in the various states.  I cut it from NFS's data and pasted it in to mine.  But I don't think I really need to have that at hand.  Right now, all I need to do just display NFS's data and then put a placemark down.  I noticed that Michigan's NCTA mile markers were going in the westbound direction, while North Dakota's were in the eastbound.  I'm now going to make my markers westbound. 

All you do is open the properties of one of my chapter/ affiliate tracks with the "measurements" tab showing and backspace from the end of the track until I come upon a campsite, campground, lodging, or a road or trail that leads to those, then record the mileage in the preset placemarks as I go.  All measurements that don't show a decimal point, or those that are really close together will need to be read in inches, then divided by 63,360 (inches in a mile) to get a decimal.   If the measurement is a double digit number that has a decimal smaller than 0.1, Google Earth doesn't even bother reading it.

I also re-labeled all of the unnamed campsites from the point data issued by the NCTA.  So far, it's all for my personal records.

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.