Need instructions: searching for trailhead

[Traili Warf]

I would like to be able to search for key: highway:trailhead, presumably I would use User Defined search, how do I do that?

[Traili Warf]

Still looking for a solution...

[Majka]

Not sure if it will work, I cannot check if it works:

On the map, find area, where you know there is trailhead on the screen somewhere, just hidden.

Select displaying POI, instead directly selecting a category, press options ("...") -> categories -> nearest POI . You'll get a list of all POIs around you. 

Choose "selection" in the header of the list again - second row on the right. Now, you can filter again. Look if you can find the "trailhead" category and select this one. Then "use filters". 

Look for the correct commands, I have set Osmand in local language so the names can be slightly different.

On Monday, 3 July 2017 18:25:42 UTC+2, Traili Warf wrote:

Still looking for a solution...

[Bart Eisenberg]

Judging from http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/trailhead, there are only 521 of these tags in use on OSM.  

[Traili Warf]

Majka, thanks for spelling out the details.

I had created a saved filter, but it searches for "trailhead" by name.  I still would like to create a custom search for key highway/trailhead combination, which would cover trailheads with different names, and exclude non-trailheads that have "trailhead" in the name.

[Traili Warf]

Fair point, highway/trailhead is not an official tag, which is why I asked how to configure a custom search.

All in all, there is a disconnect in OSM overall or OsmAnd in particular: 

OsmAnd allows to search for cross country skiing tracks, bicycle route nodes, but not for hiking trails (trailheads).

[Andy Townsend]

On 05/07/2017 21:36, Traili Warf wrote:
> All in all, there is a disconnect in OSM overall or OsmAnd in particular:
> OsmAnd allows to search for cross country skiing tracks, bicycle route
> nodes, but not for hiking trails (trailheads).

Outside of OsmAnd there are certainly OSM maps that visualise hiking
trails - https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org is probably the most famous
of those.

However it may not be always sensible to look for a "trailhead". Taking
an example closer to home, the regional and national trails near me at
https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/#?map=11!53.1079!-1.7804 tend to join
each other, and there's nothing "big" marking the start or the end -
that's just where the signage stops.

What you might want to look for is a car park in the vicinity of a trail
such as https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/#?map=18!53.1204!-1.7109 .

Best Regards,
Andy

[Kevin Kenny]

On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 5:24 PM, Andy Townsend <ajt...@gmail.com> wrote:

> However it may not be always sensible to look for a "trailhead". Taking an
> example closer to home, the regional and national trails near me at
> https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/#?map=11!53.1079!-1.7804 tend to join
> each other, and there's nothing "big" marking the start or the end - that's
> just where the signage stops.
>
> What you might want to look for is a car park in the vicinity of a trail
> such as https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/#?map=18!53.1204!-1.7109 .

I've mapped a few hiking trails, including
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/4286650
(which was surely an adventure!) I didn't realize until I saw this thread
that highway=trailhead even existed, and I've never mapped one.
But I've done a bunch of amenity=parking, for example
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/372779564
at places close to trails. (That particular trail did have something
'big' marking the end, and I tagged it as a piece of public art,
which it is.
http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/30/36/16/6415280/7/1024x1024.jpg)

Since highway=trailhead is so rare in most places, I do question
how useful it is.

[Traili Warf]

Over time I added or updated a lot of trails (foot / cycle / bridle paths).  waymarkedtrails.org shows no trails in my area on perhaps because they do not have national trail designation.  I am aware of many great hikes in my area which I have been marking with "trailhead", and I would love to see similar suggestions from others.

Searching for trails: on a recent visit to US National Parks, there was not mobile data connection (no live connection to waymarkedtrails). I am armed with powerful OsmAnd app, yet I rarely get meaningful search results for nearby trails.  We have a disconnect...

The first place I learned about "highway=trailhead" tag was on "US National Park Service Tagging" wiki: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/US_National_Park_Service_Tagging

If NPS thinks they should tag trail heads, why shouldn't we?

I do understand that the shortcoming is coming from lack of approved OSM tag.  Since OSM has tags for such minute things as pedestrian crossing and railroad crossing, there is parity in marking good/suggested/official places to pickup a hiking trail, whether it is national or very local.  

I wish I knew how to bring OSM proposal trailhead to maturity: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/trailhead

If the tag was official, it would make sense to start adding those tags to existing trails, despite it being rarely used at this time:

https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/highway=trailhead

Many thanks for your feedback.

[Bart Eisenberg]

I would just add to this discussion that I'm glad to see the interest here in adding trails to OSM and using OsmAnd to navigate them.  Around my area north of San Francisco, OSM is the most complete online source of hiking trails, with the potential to become that for other areas of the world.  At the same time, OsmAnd has evolved into a full-featured outdoor navigation program, including routing using OSM vector data; contour profiling and route previewing; universal, customizable contour lines with hill shading, full support for viewing OSM POIs including geolocated Wikipedia articles--with no no data connection required.   

[Kevin Kenny]

On Jul 6, 2017 11:20 AM, "Bart Eisenberg" <bartei...@gmail.com> wrote:

I would just add to this discussion that I'm glad to see the interest here in adding trails to OSM and using OsmAnd to navigate them.  Around my area north of San Francisco, OSM is the most complete online source of hiking trails, with the potential to become that for other areas of the world.

This. 

I've mapped a few hundred miles of trail personally, and imported the boundaries of hundreds of parks and preserves, because OSM is the only platform that I can see being capable of growing into a comprehensive trail resource. 

Where I hike,  the 'authoritative' official trail maps are full of errors. The US once had topographic maps that were the envy of the globe, but that project was abandoned during the Bush (41) administration, and the maps have become quite stale. If we are to have trail maps, citizen-mappers will have to produce them.

I admit that I've never tried OSMand in the backcountry. I use it when driving to the trailhead, but switch to Backcountry Navigator on trail.  This is mostly because it's familiar, but also because it lets me use self-produced raster tiles. I produce my own tile maps, incorporating non-OSM data sources. 

Anyway,  for all that I complain, this community is wonderful.

[Bart Eisenberg]

@Kevin: I agree.  The USGS is no longer doing the on-the-ground surveying needed to keep its classic topographical maps up to date, and the more time that passes, the more outdated those maps will become.  Which leaves crowd-sourcing and, of course, commercial map makers to pick up the slack.  OSM's goal is as ambitious as Wikipdia's, with fewer contributors. But even so, OSM is probably already the most comprehensive online resource for hiking trails. 

Regarding importing self-produced raster maps, I did this video tutorial on importing into OsmAnd using a commercial Windows program called MAPC2MAPC:  https://youtu.be/Y_fekLfcUOc  How are you importing into Backcountry Navigator?  

And--I'm interested in how you imported park boundaries into OSM. I could never figure that out.  Thanks!

[Kevin Kenny]

On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 3:58 PM, Bart Eisenberg <bartei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @Kevin: I agree. The USGS is no longer doing the on-the-ground surveying
> needed to keep its classic topographical maps up to date, and the more time
> that passes, the more outdated those maps will become. Which leaves
> crowd-sourcing and, of course, commercial map makers to pick up the slack.
> OSM's goal is as ambitious as Wikipdia's, with fewer contributors. But even
> so, OSM is probably already the most comprehensive online resource for
> hiking trails.
>
> Regarding importing self-produced raster maps, I did this video tutorial on
> importing into OsmAnd using a commercial Windows program called MAPC2MAPC:
> https://youtu.be/Y_fekLfcUOc How are you importing into Backcountry
> Navigator?
>
> And--I'm interested in how you imported park boundaries into OSM. I could
> never figure that out. Thanks!

This thread has drifted far from the topic of searching for trailheads
in OSMand, and indeed from anything specific to OSMand. I'm going to
reply privately to these questions.

[Bart Eisenberg]

Makes sense.  Thanks.  

[ali...@gmail.com]

Nobody is protesting... Post it here! :)

[Kevin Kenny]

On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 7:07 PM, ali...@gmail.com <ali...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Nobody is protesting... Post it here! :)

If a second person is asking to hear about it, it's worth a blog post.

http://dftscript.blogspot.com/2017/07/tiled-maps-and-imports.html

[Bart Eisenberg]

Wow--definitely not easy, indeed.  Interesting that despite all the sources and map layers you've imported, on-the-ground GPS surveying remains the gold standard for authenticating trails. As you note with the NY Dept of Environmental Conservation, even importing from seemingly reliable sources may be problematic due to copyright infringement and aging data. The latter is also a problem for USGS Topo maps.  Even the USGS is experimenting with crowd sourcing.

Your blog post also helped we understand why you use Backcountry Navigator, rather than OsmAnd.  Osmand doesn't support the use of alternative tile servers; BN does.

[Nico W]

I use Osmand primarily for hiking, all over the world and the OSM has the most hiking trails. Having trailheads on the map is a good feature, especially if you can tag them with what kind of permit is required. In Washington state there are 5(?) different permits that are needed at various places. National park service permit, Discovery Pass for State Parks, National forest Service Pass, Backcountry permits..... very confusing if you want to jump in the car and go for a hike.

[Traili Warf]

A fresh thought on the topic...  Since no developers responded, this is only a workaround:

OSM supports tag information=guidepost.  OsmAnd allows to save custom category: guidepost (matching official OSM tag) + name has "trailhead".

Let's start adding "guidepost" to trail heads, plus name containing trailhead?

How does this sound?

[Traili Warf]

Another related point: this wiki lists tag "network=lwn" for: "Local walking network: short walking trails in National/State parks, city parks or gardens".

This page however does not answer the question how to search for trails...

[Traili Warf]

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_States_Long_Distance_Trails