In this area, the Encampment River isn’t even on the map! I didn’t do much to fix that… I did add the southern half of the Encampment River Trail, which happens to be the part I hiked. It’s more popular than not being on the map indicates and now it’s complete on the map.

Before Encampment, I hiked in the north portion of Mount Zirkel Wilderness. There were no trails here on OSM. There were a couple track roads. In the congressionally designated wilderness. Not on my watch! I actually hiked quite a lot of the trails here, and added a few more based on what can be seen and USGS. It seems to be fairly accurate in the area. I was able to adjust a lot of these to trail visible in satellite pictures.

I do have a difficulty here for the trail visibility. If you read my blog, you’ll find a theme. After the first 5.5 miles, I launched into two miles of the most obvious but difficult trail I’ve ever encountered. In the middle of the second day, I launched into another 2 mile section that was much the same. On the third day, I headed out into another 2 miles that was definitely going to be worse than the lower trail, defiant about if it would be. There was a bit that was the worst piece of trail for the whole trip, but it was a bit shorter.

Trail visibility doesn’t really cover this, though. It assumes the trail is clear of obstacles. This trail had all sorts of obstacles, but they aren’t hiding the trail. The beetle killed trees are coming down quickly and I had to go over/under/around an average of over 100 a day over this three day trip. They’ve probably come down over the last couple years and the trail underneath is quite obvious. Easy to follow, not easy to travel. I tend to ignore the obstacles and evaluate the trail. Hopefully they are temporary. I even ran into a ranger going the other direction counting trees. (183 at that halfway point!) Plus the first 5.5 miles were cleared of all but two new trees. The other side of the loop was clear for 6 miles. I can see where others might get a bit upset with being told the trail is obvious when it is not at all easy.

Then I moved on to Green Mountain Falls, which needed adding. The old trail used to follow the fork all the way up to the Huston Park Trail (which has the CDT now). It turns and stops at the falls now and maintenance stops at the wilderness line. There’s not a lot after that now. The trail needed adding and the road needed length adjustment to get all the way to the trailhead. Hum, should have added roughness. The locals know you don’t do it with anything but an ATV.

Then there’s Huston Park Wilderness trails. Most of the CDT is actually Huston Park Trail and there were a couple spots the route was wrong. I also hiked a little of Baby Lake Trail, which was also well used. I couldn’t find a good source for the rest of it, unfortunately. Dropped a “fixme” on it. I should be more liberal with those.

Outside the wilderness, the CDT was a bit off. One bit of trail was missing with travel along abandoned and good road instead. Two bits of trail were following a lost hiker wandering around to the west and back. The trail was bad, but not that bad. I had a lot more work in this part. I’m a little suspicious that this part is actually the Wyoming Trail. South of here (in Colorado) it is the Wyoming Trail.

I then did some off trail wandering looking for state line markers. They were all new! Bother. Then got into trails again on a motorcycle trail that wasn’t on the map. Managed to add all of it via USGS and my track. A bunch of it isn’t on USGS, and that’s the part I hiked. Weird. The rest, I could confirm on photos.

Then there’s CDT to Bridger Peak. The line on the map for CDT followed a trail built for it, which was true. Then it followed one that doesn’t exist. I hiked it, it definitely doesn’t exist. That got fixed. There’s also trail that goes up Bridger Peak instead of following the road. I added those trails. No idea if the CDT follows that. If they hike on OSM, they have that choice. There’s a fun ruin of a fire lookout up there. (Added.) CDT wasn’t marked there like it was marked on the other trail.

Also in the area was a bunch of details to add about the Treasure Island river access area.