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.

Dispersed Waypoints - Michigan and Wisconsin on North Country Trail

I finished the dispersed camping waypoints for Michigan and Wisconsin.  I went on to try North Dakota, but my Google Earth crashed when I accidentally tried to paste a KML element into a text field.  That's the #1 way that I crash this application.  It happens when I accidentally click on a colored polygon, or a shape for a government reservation.  In this case, these are colored "green" for when dispersed, or backcountry camping is permitted.  As I've mentioned in previous articles, I'm putting the "I's" and "O's" in to signal "on" and "off" for more rudimentary GPS's.

I have not been keeping track of my hours.  This project ultimately benefits Adventurer's Project.  When it's all said and done, if I had to guess, I'd say that there would be 200 hours put into it? The plan is to release all of it's data on Adventurer's Project's website.  I still have North Dakota and Minnesota to do.  I'm going to leave that for tomorrow.  Today, I just got a reminder to make a payment on my Buckeye Trail Association Life Membership.  I got it in October, so I guess I should get rid of that?

Dispersed Camping Waypoints - NCT NY

I'm pretty convinced that the GPS camping information is pretty much compiled for the North Country Trail in New York State.  The re-formating of the commercial campground and lodging waypoint labels sill has to be done.  I determined that I might be able to program a series of commands and keystrokes on my gaming keypad to speed that up.  There's a number of redundant waypoints that were a result of my search and save method that need to be eliminated.  But today, I'm focused on dispersed, or backcountry camping.

  I determined that when I start the mile markers, that I'll use the dispersed "on" and "off" signals that I devised as to where to put down a mile marker.  If I have markers there and a dispersed campsite on the mock hiker simulation occurs between them, I won't have measure very much from the last one.  In fact, I'll probably add to the markers as I do this.

Michigan DNR, Pennsylvania DCNR and Vermont ANR Plotted

Michigan DNR parcel GIS data is taxing my computer to it's limits.  I have to set my CPU's to "high priority" for Google Earth Pro and it barely runs it.  I can't find any shapes of for DNR's reservations.  Instead, I'm using the parcels, which has a lot more entries.  I'd like to color code them for the camping that's available, but with how I'm throwing everything my computer's go into it and it's running really slow, I don't think that it's worth it.

Google Earth displays the state forest reservation lines, but doesn't have an icon in them telling me what it is.  I started the DIS C I's and O's (dispersed camp, on and off), but it's a shot in the dark if I got them right.  They will probably have to do?

The state polygons (shapes) for Pennsylvania commonwealth reservations are in.  It's state forests are few, but dispersed camping is permitted and they're all colored green.  I just finished up Vermont's state reservations.  That's it.  The ground work is laid for camping.  The next thing I'll be doing is lodging and I should probably be done with that quickly?

And of course all this is a continuation of my North Country Trail mapping project.

Camping Prohibition - North Country Trail 01/04/2018

As of this date, camping is prohibited on all US Fish and Game Wildlife Refuges within 4 miles of the present day route of  the North Country Trail.

Camping on NCT VT & NYS

I got the campsites somewhat done for Vermont and New York State on the North Country Trail.  What really needs to happen is that I start the governmental reservation map image overlays.  That is needed to paint a complete picture.  I used GIS data for Adirondack Park, state parks, forests and wildlife management areas.  They're now color coded green for dispersed camping permitted, yellow for no dispersed camping, but has other fixed campsites and red for no camping at all.  At this point, the folder with mostly New York's commercial camping needs cleaning up because of how I searched for them and copied the results in Google Earth to one of it's folders.  They also need to be coded as "C - (name)" to be read on a small GPS screen.

Early Warning System

I've always been good at the BT's maps, it's fixed amenities and generally anticipating where multi-day hikers will be next?  So, I've made a map based on an entry level thru hiker's abilities depicting where they'd most likely be 10 days out from the The Wilderness Loop in both directions.  And since the Road Fork and Whipple Sections are both North Country Trail (NCT) concurrent, 10 days out had to be tracked on the Great Trail Sandy Beaver Chapter span of that trail when it's independent in NE Ohio.

For my North Country mock hike written simulation, one of the next steps is to devise some mile markers based on campsites, campgrounds, lodging, or the intersections to these.  I had to get Great Trail Sandy Beaver's started for what I'm calling my "Early Warning System."

There are ways that I can track a thru hiker.  One is that I can follow them on Facebook.  Two is that if I get their cell numbers, we can text.  Three is that they let me follow their location somehow.  The Maps app (which is Google Maps) lets users do this.  The early warning map is on Google Earth and is more of a quick reference.

If they're more powerful than entry level thru hikers, I can still anticipate their arrival, it's just done on the pattern of their daily progress instead.  That would still give me some idea.  This was done for Adventurer's Project and a chapter that may come of it.