Found me a new trick for editing the map, which is really nice for confirming that other people also see the paths I see. The Strava Global Heat Map. They seem to be getting quite a few to participate and, while the heat may not be strong, it often extends into backcountry routes. You can get it as a background for editing Open Street Map via Strava-iD. The background here is not as detailed as can be found on the heat map if you are logged in and may be an older data set. I'm not sure.
I am sure that it is useful. For instance, I found that my path and the marked path for climbing Medicine Bow on the popular eastern side did not match up. They were very much of the same shape, which is always a warning bell that some GPS might have transposed itself sideways. Both paths seemed to be following a line that could be a trail, but frankly the pictures aren't that great for that spot. Which is correct? Mine was the only GPS trace uploaded to Open Street Map, so that layer wasn't helpful. Then I checked the heat map and found mine seemed to agree. I edited it in iD, but then checked it in Strava-iD. It's pretty obvious there.
Edited trail on the heat map with a background showing the old trail. (Strava-iD)
Above you can see the old trail as red dots in the background, wandering quite far from where people have tracked themselves. While there do seem to be some differences of opinion higher up, they could be going somewhere else. We can even see a little cross country heat off to the side.
I used it again when editing the Continental Divide Trail. Yeah, the CDT isn't well represented yet. I found some glaring problems as I checked my GPS against the map south of Huston Park Wilderness. Apparently someone had been lost as they hiked it and still put up the track as trail. They did mark the "trail_visibility" as "bad", which was almost true. I must admit, that was nearly the hardest bit to follow, but there were markers. I checked the heat and found it agreeing with mine and so I edited it. Then I realized I might want a "before" image and had to track down something still showing the older database.
Before, via Cartogiraffe, with marking for where the hiker was lost off to the west of the trail as well as where a trail was missing and the route relation showing it followed abandoned and very good road instead.
Visualized on Waymarked Trails, it is now a much smoother track.
After, without bulges to the west or road excursions to the south. (Waymarked Trails)
Not that that might be the end of the story. The other hard part to hike was this bit of trail that replaces the roads. Oh, it is definitely marked as CDT, but it tromps across a bit of a swamp at one point. I followed paths through the grass, crossed little streams that weren't on the map, then just before getting to trees and obvious trail again, there was the swamp. Only a few tens of feet, but it posed few dry feet possibilities. So I had a look at it on the heat map and added a little extra.
Details of the CDT near the swamp area, which is centered here, on the right side of the lighter area. (Strava-iD)
You can see that while people do go across, there's a large number that divert to the north and return. There are markers on either side of this, but not through the middle. I'm willing to suspect there's a better path there, maybe it should be the trail. So I dropped in an approximate route based on where people are hiking and marked it "bad". So... maybe that was right and maybe not. I just thought they should have the hint.
Meanwhile, I should investigate if that is really the Continental Divide Trail. I strongly suspect it's following the Wyoming Trail through here. These older trails that already existed are going to get forgotten under the fancy new moniker of CDT. I wish for them to remain their old identity. Making a relation that marks these long distance trails without renaming the underlying trails really works for this. They're nicely shown with Waymarked Trails, too. That's another new trick I've come across.
I'm now getting in on adding to the heat map on Strava: profile.
Once upon a time, while having some amazing Zion National Park rocks to look at, I took a moment to observe the flowers. There was one quite pretty penstemon getting pollinated by a bee. Except there was something wrong. The whole of the scene was very very still. The bee hung in front of the flower without so much as a wing flap. Where was physics? The natural laws were not being obeyed. A frozen tableau in Zion. I looked closer and found I wasn't seeing all of the bee. At first I saw something like two fangs and the negative space resolved itself into a large spider. The integrity of physics was restored, but flowers had just become very dangerous places. The things you find when out and about! But it does make a bit of sense. You hear that watering holes are one of the most dangerous places for wandering animals. This would just be the bee equivalent. I then returned home to those nice, safe flowers I'd known. A very familiar blue-dick hosting danger. Sp...
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