Ridecamp: Re: [RC] maping, marking and GPS

In a message dated 9/5/02 10:32:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time, cdy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> 2) Is there a standard marking system?


     Well, you have struck a pet peeve of mine, Charles.  I have been preaching for years about standardizing the trail marking system in the State of Florida.  The state trails council standardized a system years ago and for some reason it was never implemented. We have a lot of different public entity's with public land, each one, for some reason, uses a different type of marker. Now from their standpoint it probably seems like a good idea so the user can identify which entity is the land manager, but in reality many users do not care who the manager is, they just want to use the trails. Supposedly our state forest will now be going to "bands" painted around the trees, but then the state parks use whatever little sign they can find, some have a horse on them, some a hoof silhouette. The National Forest use different markers in there forest.  Yet the Florida Trail Association (hikers) are so very well organized that they have a rectangular blaze painted on every hiking trail in the state, no 
matter who is the manager.  Of course they have a lot of volunteers to maintain and mark trails.  

So for an endurance ride, the RM has pretty much got to mark the entire ride with temporary markers that a rider can follow.  All except Goethe, where the phenomenal Helen Koehler has marked over 50 miles of trails with permanent painted markers nailed to the trees, with that managers blessing! That's a small piece of information about our trail system in Florida. Soapbox off.

Jackie Baker
Florida