Long Trail in Google Earth... rough plot

[Mr. Parkay]

Hello,

I just created a google earth file for the Long Trail. It's extremely rough, but I think it's better than nothing. At the moment, it's probably only usful for giving the viewer a general idea of the trail's route, since much of the data is outdated. Hopefully a better google earth file will come along to put this one out of it's misery.

Anyhow, here's a link to the google earth forum where I posted the file. I also have a more detailed description in that post:

Long Trail in Google Earth KML file (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=1238337&page=0&vc=#Post1238337)

enjoy!

--Mr. Parkay

[celt]

Thanks for all your work. I've really enjoyed "flying" over the trail for the last hour or so.

Like you wrote, its rough in some places but I found it pretty up to date. For example you've included the Killington / Pico relocations, the Bear Mountain relocation in Division 5 and the new Lamoille River bridge in Division 10.

I found only two major routing problems.

In Division 9 between the Winooski River and Bolton Mountain. Where you have the trail crossing (fording) the Winooski at Bolton (place) and climbing Bolton Mountain via the ski area access road and the Joiner Brook drainage the actual route follows the Duxbury Road for four miles along the south bank of the Winooski and crosses at Jonesville. After a short road walk under Interstate 89 the trail climbs a ridge above the west side of duck brook before crossing the drainage and climbing the long ridge to the southwest of Bolton Mountain.

Also, in Division 10 your route climbs Mount Mansfield twice. Where the plotted route reaches the ridge at The Nose and descends via the trails of the Stowe ski area to Route 108 and then re-climbs to The Adams Apple (missing the true summit), the actual route traverses the entire Mansfield Ridge hitting all the peaks except the Nose. At Route 108 the trail now avoids the road walk into Smugglers Notch and climbs towards Spruce Peak to rejoins the old route near Sterling Pond.

This was a great idea. I hope you can update the routes. Maybe the shelters can be plotted sometime too. I know the A.T. / L.T. shelter locations have been plotted before but I'm not sure about the northern L.T. shelters.

Thanks again.

[Mr. Parkay]

Thanks for all your work. I've really enjoyed "flying" over the trail for the last hour or so.

Like you wrote, its rough in some places but I found it pretty up to date. For example you've included the Killington / Pico relocations, the Bear Mountain relocation in Division 5 and the new Lamoille River bridge in Division 10.

I found only two major routing problems.

In Division 9 between the Winooski River and Bolton Mountain. Where you have the trail crossing (fording) the Winooski at Bolton (place) and climbing Bolton Mountain via the ski area access road and the Joiner Brook drainage the actual route follows the Duxbury Road for four miles along the south bank of the Winooski and crosses at Jonesville. After a short road walk under Interstate 89 the trail climbs a ridge above the west side of duck brook before crossing the drainage and climbing the long ridge to the southwest of Bolton Mountain.

Also, in Division 10 your route climbs Mount Mansfield twice. Where the plotted route reaches the ridge at The Nose and descends via the trails of the Stowe ski area to Route 108 and then re-climbs to The Adams Apple (missing the true summit), the actual route traverses the entire Mansfield Ridge hitting all the peaks except the Nose. At Route 108 the trail now avoids the road walk into Smugglers Notch and climbs towards Spruce Peak to rejoins the old route near Sterling Pond.

This was a great idea. I hope you can update the routes. Maybe the shelters can be plotted sometime too. I know the A.T. / L.T. shelter locations have been plotted before but I'm not sure about the northern L.T. shelters.

Thanks again.

Hey Celt,

Thanks for the feedback! That's exactly what I need. I'll go back and make some changes here in the next few hours... then I'll make a post about what I've changed.

I can definitely add the shelters which are an the AT/LT section, since that info is already available on the net... and I should be able to add a few of the northern shelters too, since I remember seeing some of them on the usgs topo quads. But I suppose that info will be pretty incomplete. But it's a start! Anyhow, I'll see what I can do :)

[Mr. Parkay]

Hello Again,
I've made some changes to the google earth file:

1. I corrected the track near the Woonski River, so I think that section is taken care of now.

2. I attempted to fix the track near the Mt. Mansfield area, but I'm not sure if I got it right. It's probably more accurate than before anyway.

3. I added tons of placemarks for shelters, mountains, lakes etc. Practically all of the shelters for the AT/LT section are included, but I only have a few for the Northern part of the LT, since that was all I could find on the USGS topo quads. Two of the shelters where unnamed on the topo quads, so I labelled them as "shelter?" in the GE file. Anyhow, These placemarks are "unchecked" by default so that they don't clutter the screen, so you have to "check" them to make them show up.

That's it for now, let me know if anyone has more corrections... or knows the location of shelters etc. This project seems to be coming along nicely.

--Mr. Parkay

[celt]

The Winooski to Bolton route looks right

In the Mt. Mansfield area you've got the section from 108 to Sterling Pond roughed in but the route across Mansfield to 108 needs a tweek.

Where your route leaves the ridge between The Forehead and The Nose the trail follows the ridge crest, skirting The Nose to the west, continuing along to The Chin (the true summit, 4393ft) and descending towards the Adams Apple. At about 4100' the trail leaves the ridge in a SW direction. It reaches Rt108 between 1500' and 1600' (a little north of where your route crosses) turns left (NW), follows the road for 0.2 mile and then enters the woods on the right at the Smugglers Notch Picnic area. It connects to your route from here.

[Mr. Parkay]

The Winooski to Bolton route looks right

In the Mt. Mansfield area you've got the section from 108 to Sterling Pond roughed in but the route across Mansfield to 108 needs a tweek.

Where your route leaves the ridge between The Forehead and The Nose the trail follows the ridge crest, skirting The Nose to the west, continuing along to The Chin (the true summit, 4393ft) and descending towards the Adams Apple. At about 4100' the trail leaves the ridge in a SW direction. It reaches Rt108 between 1500' and 1600' (a little north of where your route crosses) turns left (NW), follows the road for 0.2 mile and then enters the woods on the right at the Smugglers Notch Picnic area. It connects to your route from here.

Thanks for the info Celt. I just amended the track as you suggested, so I think the Mt. Mansfield area is "roughed in" pretty good now. Otherwise let me know if you think it needs more tweaking. I've added the approximate location of a few more shelters with this update as well.

In addition to the google earth track I went ahead and created a fancy elevation profile last night. I've attached the file to this post... plus there's a link from the google earth forum where the track is hosted.

--Mr. Parkay