Report Trail Issues

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

This Thread will be used specifically to report trail issues.  Report downed trees, and other trail issues that HMBA's trail crew need to be aware of.

Also, please use a new tool to report trail issues:  MAPRIKA



This is an App for your smart phone or I Phone.  You can download the 2013 Park Map.  This is a great way to know where you are at on the trail and it has a cool feature called "send Location".  If you choose "send location" from the menu, then you can choose to email your location.  Once you are in your email application, you can add and attachment/Picture and take a picture of the trail issue.  Send the email to

BCSPtrailissues@hmba.org

This will forward the map and photo to our trail crew leaders and park management.  If we know exactly where an issue is, and what it looks like, we can get the right crew and tools to the location quickly.

[gmcttr]

Will this also get the info posted to the forum in a timely fashion, or will we have to do that separately? Without a forum posting, other riders won't have a heads up about a hazard on the trail.

Will we now have to look in both Trail Conditions and Report Trail Issues to get all the trail condition info?

Is someone working to get Green Valley added to the BCSP map?

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

There are three maps available for the BCSP.

If you zoom in on BCSP and hit the "+" icon, select "all maps", you should see three red icons.  Two up by the mtb trails and one further South.  The southern one is for the horse trails.

The two up north are for the mtb and hiking trails.  One is "Brown County State Park"  This is the old one with out Green Valley.  The other is "Brown County State Park 2013".  This one has Greenvalley.

Hope this helps.

[gmcttr]

http://www.maprika.com/make-a-map.html

[Draggon]

I just uploaded the version I've been working on the last couple of weeks.  It's a clean (electronic) copy of the 2013 map with about 15 GPS points set throughout the park.  The name is:

"Brown County State Park - 2013"

Please note the "-" (dash) between "Park" and "2013" which is the only differentiation from the previous map discussed in this thread.

[Mahk]

Will this also get the info posted to the forum in a timely fashion, or will we have to do that separately? Without a forum posting, other riders won't have a heads up about a hazard on the trail.

Will we now have to look in both Trail Conditions and Report Trail Issues to get all the trail condition info?

Is someone working to get Green Valley added to the BCSP map?

The above quote is the second post in this thread, but no one has addressed the first two questions. The last question (adding GV to the latest map) has been discussed, but I still have related comments, stated below. Addressing gmcttr's questions--
 
1) gmcttr's first question: Will this [reporting the issue through Maprika] also get the info posted to the forum in a timely fashion, or will we have to do that separately? Without a forum posting, other riders won't have a heads up about a hazard on the trail.
Reporting the issue through Maprika will not post it to the forum, so, yes, if you use Maprika you will also have to post to the forum. If someone doesn't have a smartphone, or hasn't uploaded Maprika, they can still just report the issue to the forum.
 
2) gmcttr's second question: Will we now have to look in both Trail Conditions and Report Trail Issues to get all the trail condition info? 

Yes. BCSP Trail Conditions is intended to give the big picture, especially for people who are driving from out of town and wonder what the trails are like now or may be like in the next few days. Trail Conditions is intended to report, or allow discussion for, things such as weather conditions, wet / muddy trails, freeze / thaw etc.   Again, this is the big picture.  The comments / posts in this thread would encompass all or most of the trails at BCSP. 

Report Trail Issues is for people to report specific maintenance problems that need to be corrected or repaired eg. fallen trees, eroded berms, washed out stream crossings, growing mud holes etc.  The comments / posts in this thread would point to a single location with a particular problem.
 
3) gmcttr's third question: Is someone working to get Green Valley added to the BCSP map?
 
This has apparently been done, which brings me to my other comments--
 
A) Is this map only available through Maprika? If someone can do it, it would be nice to have the map available somewhere (here on the forum???) as a pdf that can be easily downloaded to a desktop or laptop, and not just to a smartphone as part of an app.
 
B) Maprika is also being touted as a tool for locating injured or lost riders. But not everyone has a smartphone. If I fall off of Schooner with my not-so-smart phone I will have to call 911 and reference one of the trail location numbers. These are not very obvious, but every trail now has emergency location numbers. One is in this photo from another thread:
http://www.hmba.org/smf/index.php?topic=11919.msg98844#new

People should note these location numbers on the trails that they frequent, especially the technical trails that don't get a lot of traffic. If the location numbers are not already on the downloadable Maprika map, maybe they could also be added to that for referance and familiararity. 
 
Sorry for the big font.  I typed this in Word, then copied and pasted and it will show only as either 8 or 14 point.  And it keeps changing.  If someone can fix it please do. 
 

[Dan71]

This Thread will be used specifically to report trail issues.  Report downed trees, and other trail issues that HMBA's trail crew need to be aware of.

Also, please use a new tool to report trail issues:  MAPRIKA



This is an App for your smart phone or I Phone.  You can download the 2013 Park Map.  This is a great way to know where you are at on the trail and it has a cool feature called "send Location".  If you choose "send location" from the menu, then you can choose to email your location.  Once you are in your email application, you can add and attachment/Picture and take a picture of the trail issue.  Send the email to

BCSPtrailissues@hmba.org

This will forward the map and photo to our trail crew leaders and park management.  If we know exactly where an issue is, and what it looks like, we can get the right crew and tools to the location quickly.

I downloaded the Maprika to my iPhone, got the BCSP and it finds my position.  But I do not see the option to "send location"?  Any idea what I am missing?

[gmcttr]

On my Android, I hit the button that brings up Help, Settings, etc and Send Location is the first item on the list.

[Dan71]

On my Android, I hit the button that brings up Help, Settings, etc and Send Location is the first item on the list.

Thanks gmcttr,
I do not see that option on my iPhone.  One menu has weather, food and coffee, places nearby and search.  Other menu is labeled more and selections are my profile, settings, all tracks, start new track, meetings and my places.  Nothing about send location.


Any iPhone users help?

[LEE3]

On my Android, I hit the button that brings up Help, Settings, etc and Send Location is the first item on the list.

Thanks gmcttr,
I do not see that option on my iPhone.  One menu has weather, food and coffee, places nearby and search.  Other menu is labeled more and selections are my profile, settings, all tracks, start new track, meetings and my places.  Nothing about send location.


Any iPhone users help?

So far on my iPhone it seems I would have to first add the person to my contacts.  Then create a meeting place... Then send the coordinates to that person. 

[Draggon]

Has anyone been able to figure out how to report trail issues with the iPhone version of Maprika?  I tried the "set up a meeting" technique (discussed earlier in this thread) with my riding buddy who also has an iPhone, but he never received the meeting notice.

I have a strong feeling after spending some time with Steve King and his Droid that the Maprika developers have a strong Droid bias!  There are several missing features on the Apple version, and it just has a general bugginess to it.

Don't get me wrong, the app has got great potential, but the iPhone version is lagging the Droid version atm.  Since the iPhone is my work-issued (i.e. FREE!) phone, switching to a Droid isn't really in the cards for me.

[Mahk]

Would you prefer people not post trail issues if they don't use the app? I was trying to be helpful but will refrain if that is preferable.

I agree with gmcttr, trail issues should be posted here, whether or not the app is used as well. 
 
There are, I think, lots of people who don't have the app, perhaps because they don't have a smart phone (me), are from out of town/state and aren't aware of the app, or just don't have the time to load it and learn it.  The only way that they will be aware of downed trees and other trail issues is through posts in this thread, so I think that this should be the first place to report trail issues. 

I am on the mailing list that receives emails sent via Maprika.  The email includes a map that shows the location of the sender, so if the email is sent while the sender is standing at the issue, I have a good idea of where it is on the trail.  gmcttr also included a photo, so I could see the size of the tree.  My comment only meant that the Maprika email is helpful, but it is not necessary.  The most important thing is to make a post to this thread, so that everyone is aware of it. 
 
gmtccr wrote:         

....and posted here just to express that a couple of them could be left as new features if it was desired. 

     
I agree with this too--I have training wheels on and I rode over the upper two last night (Wednesday), going uphill.  I may cut them so that they lie flat on the ground, but not remove them.  The one by the frog pond can go.  I just didn't have time to ride back down with a saw.  Probably Friday. 

[gmcttr]

...marker #15...

Thanks for the directions, but just so everyone knows, that would be marker I-5, Indicating trail I (the letter nomeclature used in the park brochure), marker 5.

[Webby]

Paul_Arlinghaus  Is this email address working ?  I rode BCSP on 11/21/13 and at each tree that was across the trails I rode. I pulled up Maprika and sent my location to BCSPtrailissues@hmba.org. I've since received numeral emails showing that the message sent failed. I've double checked the email addy I sent them to and it is correct.  I know my phone is sending OK because I'd sent one to my own email addy to make sure this feature worked..  ? 
Just curious,
BTW,,  I'm sure ppl are aware of the trees by now. But, North Tower Loop had a good sized tree top down. Pine Loop and Green Valley also had tree issues from the storm that rolled thru Sunday 11/17/13.

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

Webby, I didn't see any emails from the BCSPtrailissues@hmba.org, I will investigate.

I will check with our local chainsaw guys, for the trees that are down.  Once the time changes, it is hard to get out during the week, so we are in the Winter trail mode, which means it may take us longer to remove downed trees.

Thanks for reporting the downed trees.

Paul