topic Re: Central MA hiking USA in Member Introductions

Central MA hiking USA

KatyaMaiser — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:27:32 GMT

Hello there, new to this community. I'm an avid hiker and live in central MA. There is a severe shortage of data on hiking trails in Central Massachusetts USA and I'd like to fix that. I have found so many trails that are part of this land protection organization, or that one, this state forest, or that one, and most printed guides promote this area but then list things that are over an hours drive away and not at all in Central MA. Starting my journey to figure this out.

Areas I seek to cover: From I-495 to Quabbin Reservoir, Worcester, Leominster, Sturbridge, Quabbin Reservior and Mt Wachusett region.

Re: Central MA hiking USA

MichelleMathias — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:44:46 GMT

Hi @KatyaMaiser, Welcome to the Esri Community! What a great project, I too love hiking and am disappointed when I can't find documented trails. Esri provides many different ways to collect/ track develop trail maps. You might want to check out the following product areas:

ArcGIS Online - GeoNet, The Esri Community

ArcGIS Field Maps - GeoNet, The Esri Community

ArcGIS Collector - GeoNet, The Esri Community

ArcGIS StoryMaps - GeoNet, The Esri Community

This group is a bit older and not overly active in recent years, but may have some interesting refernece materials:

Trails SIG - GeoNet, The Esri Community

Hope you find something of use to get you started. Let me know if you have any questions on navigating the community.

Cheers,

Michelle Mathias

Re: Central MA hiking USA

jcarlson — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 15:16:09 GMT

Another useful thing in this endeavor might be OpenStreetMap. You'll often find dedicated individuals such as yourself who take it upon themselves to map out their local region, and many cases do it in astounding detail. Though OSM has its drawbacks, there are places where its data is the most accurate and authoritative you could hope for.

Check out Overpass Turbo to query the OSM dataset directly, and you can see the existing paths and footways in the area you're interested in. What's more, Esri has a Living Atlas Feature Layer of OSM Highways, which includes paths, footways, cycleways, etc.

Here's a map filtered down to the non-motorized highway features. You can see that certain areas already have a great amount of detail, including surface type. Esri's feature layer updates about every ten minutes or so. As you edit OSM and add paths, you'll see them in this layer very quickly, but already converted to a more Esri-friendly format for use in desktop and web mapping tools.

Bonus Points: If you have an account with Strava, they've given explicit permission to use their public "heatmap" to help identify and digitize features in OSM.

Re: Central MA hiking USA

CraigAustin — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 13:56:02 GMT

Hi, Katya,

I'm Craig Austin. I work at a state bureau called MassGIS. I saw this post and wanted to alert you that there is a layer that we host that is maintained by the Department of Conservation and Reservation (DCR). I have a link to our map/layer viewer, Oliver, that should also display the trails and road layer. If you view from a small scale, you will see only the long distance trails (for instance the Appalachian Trail). Zoom in to see more trails. There is still a dearth of trails in this region, but it might help you locate some if you weren't aware of our map viewer.

http://maps.massgis.state.ma.us/map_ol/oliver.php?lyrs=Structures~Basemaps_Structures~|Tax%20Parcels%20for%20Display~Basemaps_L3Parcels~|Detailed%20Features~Basemaps_MassGISBasemapWithLabels2~|Tax%20Parcels%20for%20Query~massgis:GISDATA.L3_TAXPAR_POLY_ASSESS~Blank_Polys_Max_18057|Long%20Distance%20Trails~massgis:GISDATA.LONGDISTTRAILS_ARC~GISDATA.LONGDISTTRAILS_ARC::Default|DCR%20Roads%20and%20Trails~massgis:GISDATA.DCR_ROADS_TRAILS_ARC~GISDATA.DCR_ROADS_TRAILS_ARC::Default&bbox=-72.3066451265304,42.47213467882781,-72.22296020526626,42.5013134220542&coordUnit=m&measureUnit=m&base=MassGIS%20Statewide%20Basemap&center=-8044481.0350442,5234169.7541339&zoom=14&opacity=1,1,1,1,1,1&baseO=1&filt=undefined|undefined|undefined|undefined|undefined|undefined

Happy Trails!