I ride with the Gallatin Valley Back Country Horsemen in Montana. We maintane trails in the Gallatin National Forrest. Ocasionally we want to re-open a neglected tail that shows up on Montana Trails v3 which I downloaded from this site. When these neglected trails run through an overgrown gulch or meadow it's often difficult to find the original trail bed. I know these trails are tracks made by people actually walking the trail. So my question is, can an accurate route be made from the marked trail on the map? It would be extreemly helpfull to us and a great benefit to all users if we can re-open some of these trails without having to completely rebuild them.
Not sure what you mean by an "accurate route". If you are referring to trails that were recorded as tracks and put on your map but have become overgrown, the tracks that were the basis for the trails should be accurate to within 30' (standard GPSr accuracy). So if you are talking about finding a trail you want to clean up, and the map was made from tracklogs, you should be able to use the map on your GPSr to follow the trail.
If you have questions about how the data was gathered for the map or changes you'd like made you should PM the map author.
What I want to do is find the old physical trail bed (Dirt). I don't know how to navigate to the track that was logged with a GPS (Electronic) to make the map. It would help greatly if I could use my GPS to re-locate old trails.
Quote from: mutterranch on September 11, 2013, 04:53:21 PM
I don't know how to navigate to the track that was logged with a GPS (Electronic) to make the map.
You should be able to load the map to a Garmin GPSr. In the field, the GPSr will show your location with a cursor (an arrowhead or something similar). Then use the cursor on the GPSr to orient yourself to the trail, and walk or ride toward it. Since very few of the maps on this site are routable, you won't be able to get turn by turn directions, but if you are in the area, you should be able to locate the trail if the track that was made is accurate. What GPSr do you plan to use?
I'm using an Oregon 450 with Montana Topo-Public lands 2011 and Montana Trails v3 (Downloaded from this site) loaded onto it. I'm not looking for "Turn by turn" dirrections. All I want is to be able to follow the cursor (Arrow) to the physical trail bed. It seems that the trails that are marked in my Oregon are not very accurate. My own tracks are often not even close to the "Red lines" on my maps. I'd be hapy with 30 feet. I was hopeing, that since these "Red lines" were created using actual track logs from people actually going over these trails, that I'd be able to get closer.
As I said above, if you have questions about accuracy you should PM the map author about the data sources he used.
I'll do that.
Thanks.