On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:16 PM Andy Townsend <[email protected]> wrote: > No - it really isn't. That was my entire point. I'm willing to bet a > small round of beer in the pub up the road that almost no-one walking > past that info board will say "oh look - that's a trailhead for the TPT".
On the other hand, I'll bet you a beer in Lake Placid that at least half the people in the bar at the Adirondack Hotel in Long Lake village would recognize that this sign https://www.flickr.com/photos/ke9tv/14920080943/ - which simply stands on the roadside at a path going into the woods, with no other facilities right there - marks a trailhead for the Northville-Placid Trail. (When I say 'no other facilities right there,' what I mean is that there's a town about 4-5 km down the highway, and it's an easy walk on the shoulder(verge) or an equally easy hitch.) It's an important trailhead. Shattuck Clearing on the sign is the site of a FORMER ranger station that burnt in the 1960's. Since its road hasn't been maintained since then, it's grown to trees and entirely impassable to anything on wheels, so while it serves as a landmark, it's not an opportunity to get help or leave the trail. If you hike in at that trailhead, except for a handful of spots on a lake where it would be possible to land a canoe or water-taxi a float plane, there's no other way out closer than Lake Placid. It's 58.6 km to the next highway, about 63 km if you're walking to the town - or to turn around back the way you came. "The last chance to leave the trail for the next two or three days" is kind of important to map! I'm therefore going to stick with 'designated or customary place to begin or end a trip on a trail.' As long as Peter is agreed that not all trailheads are anything resembling TOP's and not all TOP's are trailheads, I think we're in rough agreement. Where I get a bit prickly is at sweeping assertions like "a trailhead must be something more than where a path crosses a road." When you're on a trail where it's 60 km between roads (the NPT crosses four paved roads in 222 km), you're damned right that anywhere that the trail crosses a road is a trailhead! _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
