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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Hey guys,
I'm new to this forum but an seasoned fan of hiking the NW. I just published a website with a friend; it's called www.trailspotter.com
It's an open resource for hikers to post their trail and photos. Our goal is to systematically catalog trails in the NW while preserving wiki-style editing. You can drag-and-drop your GPX files, or just draw the trail using a pen tool.
We've been live for about a month, so there aren't that many trails yet. We look forward to hearing any feedback, and of course seeing new trails get added.
Happy Hiking,
Roman
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bobbi stillaGUAMish
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 Posts: 8012 | TRs | Pics Location: olympics! |
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bobbi
stillaGUAMish
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Thu May 15, 2014 8:07 pm
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the Lake Crescent Trail is really the Spruce Railroad Trail.
you should also note that there are other ways to access appleton pass, via sol duc, from the high divide....
bobbi ૐ
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!" - Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
bobbi ૐ
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!" - Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Thanks for the tip Bobbi. Those other trails you mention aren't posted yet... Anyone can start posting them.
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ejain Member
Joined: 27 Apr 2009 Posts: 1498 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle, WA |
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ejain
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Fri May 16, 2014 12:38 pm
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Looks nice!
To be honest, I have no shortage of resources for hike descriptions and trip reports.
What I don't have is a good tool that helps me decide where to go next weekend:
- What is the condition of road to the trailhead?
- What is the condition of the trail (stream crossings, snow)?
- How much driving?
- How much distance & elevation gain?
- What is the weather forecast?
- Do I need to expect crowds?
- Is this a good time for flowers/berries/mushrooms/fall colors?
Sites such as this one and wta.org are very helpful, but make me too reliant on recent trip reports.
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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Thanks Ejain,
Have you tried the Google Map navigation for a trail? Just click the Navigate button on a trail and you'll get up-to-date driving directions + time.
We will be adding a text field for an up-to-date condition, at the top of the description. And we support tagging, so if there is a washed out bridge you can add a marker on the map.
Thanks for your comments!
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Currently we are looking to build out the data, because we're in a bit of a catch22 with ~60 trails posted. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Roman
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Joey verrry senior member
Joined: 05 Jun 2005 Posts: 2799 | TRs | Pics Location: Redmond |
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Joey
verrry senior member
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Fri May 16, 2014 2:16 pm
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ejain Member
Joined: 27 Apr 2009 Posts: 1498 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle, WA |
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ejain
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Fri May 16, 2014 2:23 pm
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Trailspotter wrote: | Have you tried the Google Map navigation for a trail? Just click the Navigate button on a trail and you'll get up-to-date driving directions + time. |
Sure, but ideally I'd like to use driving time as a filter (instead of straight line distance).
Trailspotter wrote: | Currently we are looking to build out the data, because we're in a bit of a catch22 with ~60 trails posted. Any suggestions would be appreciated. |
wta.org has a large database of hikes and trip reports; if you ask them nicely, they might let you use that via their API...
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ejain Member
Joined: 27 Apr 2009 Posts: 1498 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle, WA |
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ejain
Member
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Fri May 16, 2014 2:29 pm
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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Joey,
I've used TrailWiki numerous times and I like it in its capacity (currently I don't understand what's happening to their homepage). And there are numerous sites out there that already do similar trail reporting. Trailspotter.com is nothing new conceptually, but we do aim to create a better experience.
To illustrate some differences:
- TrailWiki is text heavy for its detail pages
- TrailWiki is not mobile compatible
- TrailWiki doesn't support hand-drawn trails (GPXs are hard to find sometimes)
- TrailWiki does not make it clear how to add a trail.
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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Ejain,
Originally we wanted to show drive times, but it's quite complex when you re-center the map. For example, say you are in Seattle, and then move the center point to Bremerton. Each trail would then have to show a new driving time, fetched from Google. So we opted for a simpler radial solution, expecting that most people know what 100 miles means around their location.
I like your idea of detecting "crowds." In our future android app we would like to enable GPS 'checkins' where we could monitor traffic on a trail throughout
the year. In the meantime, 'heavy use' could become a trail condition tag visible at the top of the page.
Thanks!
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cairn builder Member
Joined: 19 Aug 2013 Posts: 854 | TRs | Pics
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I think this would be a lot more useful to most people if you did less programming and more data entry. Personally I don't want to write about a trail, I want to look up directions to the trailhead.
Also the number of miles doesn't mean all that much. I can cover 50 miles of I90 in the time it takes just to drive the Mildew Fork Road. Getting to Spider Meadow takes much longer than the mileage would suggest.
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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Cairn Builder,
I absolutely agree with the data entry. We're posting new trails daily.
We just posted Spider Meadows...
http://trailspotter.com/#/detail/spider-meadows-wa
Have a look at Navigate directions to spider meadows. You will get an accurate driving time report from Google with one click
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Sore Feet Member
Joined: 16 Dec 2001 Posts: 6305 | TRs | Pics Location: Out There, Somewhere |
Couple suggestions:
1 - The GPS tracks look really sloppy on the overview map. There's a three segment line starting in Seattle and ending at Heather Lake that pretty clearly doesn't correlate to an actual trail. Many of the other ones I see are like that too - just drawing a very, very simplified line representing the actual route (no doubt this is to cut down on the size of the KML or XML file you're using). I'd suggest only showing GPS routes when a user clicks on the icon for that trail.
2 - Multiple links on the overview map to each trail isn't terribly user friendly (Rattlesnake Ledge for example). I'd only be placing one icon on the map per trail, then linking that icon to each report for the associated trail - it'll cut down on load time and keep the overview map a whole lot cleaner.
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Trailspotter Member
Joined: 15 May 2014 Posts: 70 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
Hey Sore Feet,
Our next revision that will be posted shortly increases the resolution of the trails visible on the home page. We still need to work out how to bundle adjacent trails.
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Amazing photography on Flickr. It looks like you have been to some of the best places with some serious photographic equipment.
You're welcome to post trips with photos captioned with your URLs.
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hooker Member
Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 | TRs | Pics Location: Nez Perce County |
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hooker
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Sun May 18, 2014 1:11 pm
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I can't get your trailspotter link to open..
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