Survey Hike Report: Tuscarora Trail (Rt. 340 to Overall Run Waterfall)
Thom Kaye
Distance: 11.1 miles round trip
Along with a friend, we hit the Tuscarora Trail trail-head at 1030 am. I had some trepidation about parking at the trail head as I had secondary information about access. There isn't a official parking area so I parked along the side of the private driveway that was coincident with the trail.I placed a sign on my dashboard that identified me as a trail surveyor.
Note: Before you go to any trail-head that doesn't have an official parking area, I suggest you contact us to see if there is an arrangement with landowners. Moreover, place the attached sign on your dashboard.
The weather was cold (32℉) and cloudy; perfect for a long hike.There was ~ 2inches of snow that had me wishing I brought trekking poles. I wanted to hike the 13 mile loop that took me over the waterfall via the Tuscarora Trail, and back to the trail-head along the Beecher Ridge trail. Unfortunately the snow prevented us from keeping a pace that made that possible. We ended up hiking to the waterfall and back down the same trail.
Overall Run had about a dozen climbers scaling the walls of the gorge. Some were even climbing the actual waterfall. It made for an entertaining afternoon.
We arrived back at the car about 6pm.
After over 11 miles of hiking, I had some pretty significant blisters that need attention today. I am now reviewing the tracks i compiled over imagery in Garmin's BaseCamp. I should have some GPS files posted this week.
Thom
Jim Tomlin
So please keep this in mind when doing data collection along the TT - if a side trail to a TT shelter presents itself and if time permits and satellite coverage is good, please visit the shelter and acquire a good position for it. For the PATC cabins, I set up a GPS on a tripod in a clearing within 50 feet of each cabin, with a clear view of the cabin. I wasn't trying to get a position for the center of the roof or anything ridiculous like that. I put myself in the place of a tired cabin renter in the dark in the rain and that had never been to that cabin before, and asked if I found the spot I positioned, would the cabin itself be beyond obvious. I let the GPS do an average for 10-15 minutes while I took a break. I don't think you need to be that rigorous if you don't want to; that's just what I did.
You can submit these as usual in the data transfer, and if you can remember, please cc: me (jfto...@gmail.com) so that I can collect them for the new Supervisor of Trails. I'm sure I can get them from the project managers directly, too. Thank you!
Jim Tomlin
PATC Supervisor of Communications, 2011-2012
Thom Kaye
Thanks Jim. Your suggestion of 50 feet is great guidance. That distance should eliminate multi-path errors that could potentially occur.
· Below (South of) Thompson Hollow Trail, the Tuscarora Trail is in need of some TLC. I found the trail blazes to be quite faded and inconspicuous. Moreover, they exist very far apart that proves to be a challenge in the winter when you cannot see the actual trail bed.
· When I hike the trails, I try not to reference my GPS or map that often to see how difficult it is to navigate based on blazes alone. This way I can highlight areas on my map that may need supplemental information. I found one such instance about 1 mile into my hike. There exists an old sunken road that intersects with the TT that could easily be confused with Thompson Hollow Trail. The intersection is oriented in a similar way to create enough confusion that I had to reference my GPS. The old sunken road is listed on the USGS quad (Bentonville) as a trail. In the next edition of Map 9, I will probably show the old trail (sunken road) along with supplemental text indicating it as abandoned. This way people can use it as a landmark to gauge their location.
· I discovered that the collection settings of 3 seconds may be too dense for a hike that averages below 3 mph. Since I was able to retrace my route, I recognized a big difference in the survey results. Walking up the mountain I averaged 2.5 mph. With a 3 second interval set on my GPS, I ended up with a track that had a "zig-zag" pattern. When I came down the mountain, I averaged 3 mph. This resulted in a track that seemed to represent the trail much better. I believe that the "zig-zag" pattern is the result of the inherent error budget that our commercial GPS receivers suffer from. This may require surveyors to increase the collection time on their receivers to compensate for a slow hike. I am curious to hear other surveyor’s results in regards to speed and collection criteria.
· Another option people can use to post-process their survey data is to use Garmin's Base Camp software. They seem to be rapidly developing this solution based on the frequency of the updates. For about $30 a year, it allows you to download the latest commercial imagery to your desktop and GPS. This will help with editing any anomalies that occur during your survey. Once all edits are finished, you can export your tracks as a GPX file. It is a relatively intuitive program that I recommend using if you own a Garmin.
· I took many photographs of intersections and points of interest (POI) that a hiker could benefit from. During the post processing of data, I embedded the photographs into my track file. This will allow any user of my database to see an image of the POI. Ultimately users of our database will be able to query a trail and see many different photographs that exist along the length of the path. Surveyors do not need a GPS equipped camera to supplement their track submissions, just indicate what waypoint they're associated with.