[HitTheTrail]

I got an email from the WTA today that contained a link to their hike finder map. Since I use NWhikers for most of my beta I was curious and spot checked a couple of featured hikes. One that caught my eye was a hike called, “Middle Fork Entiat River” located in Ardenvoir. I grew up in Ardenvoir and have never heard of the Middle Fork Entiat River. When I clicked on it the hike was about the Main Entiat River trail some 25 miles up the road. Also, I saw a hike for Klonaqua Lakes starting down near the 8-mile bridge on the Icicle. That hike actually starts at the Main Icicle TH some five miles up the road. And that was just two hikes that caught my eye. Is there any QC being done on that map? Please don’t take this as criticism of the WTA. I think they are a great organization and donate quite a bit more than the minimum dues amount. I just think their most visible interface to the public should be accurate.

[Sore Feet]

No they are definitely not doing any sort of QA on their user submitted data - that would require an immense amount of work (I speak as someone who works in Web QA), not to mention a massive amount of familiarity with the data they're actually attempting to display. Chances are they're just dropping in markers on the coordinates that users submit.

[Kim Brown]

It's volunteer-driven. They coordinate with a cadre of volunteers to research, hike, and write up the guidebook entries. Anyone can offer to volunteer. If someone volunteers to submit a "guidebook entry," (different from a trip report), that is what is posted on the website. Unless it's reported to be incorrect, that's what is on the site. If you see something that needs to be corrected, there's a button on the entry that you can use to send the correction suggestion to WTA. I checked out the Middle Fork Entiat River, and those are trip reports, so there's no coordinated volunteer effort to submit a "guidebook entry." So long story short, a person from WTA does not actually go to the trail heads with a GPS unit, but rely on volunteers for the guidebook entries; trip reports are not checked for accuracy; the website has a disclaimer about hikers doing further research===

[Pyrites]

I haven't paid attention to trail locations on WTA's maps. But if road access locations are no longer correct, or trail descriptions are out of date, WTA will change them. I've sent careful notes about road access, down to 0.1 of a mile. When I checked back a week or so later they were revised. Similarly a trail was described as sunny and open. Trees grow. They revised it to shaded, with a few view spots in the guide. I'm not sure if you can get direct access to revising the guide. I prefer not to. I like a more consistent "voice" in the writing. Best.

[Chico]

Is submitting corrections like Google Maps where you have to convince the reviewer that you know more than they do so they'll accept it?

[Kim Brown]

You can submit any kind of change, as Pyrites illustrates. The proposed changes are researched for accuracy - even if it's just looking at a Green Trails map. So while it might be tempting to give wrong directions to a beloved place, it might work for awhile, but eventually it will be corrected by someone! Within the WTA office, chances are someone there has hiked X trail. Several WTA staff have been hiking, backpacking, climbing, building trail, fishing, bicycling, etc. in Washington state for decades (well, not continuously, they take breaks). But the hiking content is volunteer-driven, and guidebook entries and corrections submissions are based on reasonable trust and reasonable follow-up research. Which means there's an occasional mistake, or as Pyrites pointed out, changes in the terrain.

[mbravenboer]

I've been writing guide entries for the WTA and have tried to maintain my entries a bit with comments I notice. Unfortunately, not all newly written guide entries are accurate or complete. The previous guide entries from guide books are often better. I think it would be wise for the WTA to adopt a summitpost model where trails have an owner who takes responsibility for keeping the info accurate. It simply does not scale to have the WTA team themselves do it. Unfortunately, guide entries do not support comments, so it is challenging to communicate about the guide entry (hard to keep up with trip reports where comments may be sprinkled on the correctness of the entry). For entries written by volunteers, you can see in the left bar the 'WTA correspondent' who wrote the entry. Some entries I've done:

• http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/artist-point-snowshoe/
• http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/skyline-lake-snowshoe
• http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lake-ethel/
• http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/ruby-mountain

I have a big backlog of drafts. Somehow it takes me a day to write these things to be interesting and accurate, so it's hard to get it done. If you do something that's really wrong and confusing, definitely submit and edit, or send me a PM and then I can try to improve it. Edit: I do have to say that something seems wrong with the coordinates. For the guide entries I just mentioned, two of them had wrong locations, in an interesting way: Ruby was the winter NW route, and Artist Point was the summer parking area. That's definitely not the location in the entry a while ago.