After two years of intensive planning, Gov. John Hickenlooper on Friday will unveil a comprehensive online map of more than 39,000 miles of trails across Colorado.
Spanning 226 jurisdictions, the interactive map — at — marks the first run at gathering every hiking, biking and multi-use trail in Colorado in a single location. For years that trail info has been stitched across a patchwork of websites, field offices and guidebooks.
The Colorado Trail Explorer, developed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, includes 17,099 trails and 1,431 trailheads. The mapped trails include 5,683 miles of hiking trails, 6,821 miles of mountain biking trails, 24,906 miles of motorized trails and unpaved roads, and 1,746 miles of paved bike trails.
And thatap just the start.
“We intend to have every single of mile of trail in Colorado, but we are not even close,” said Eric Drummond, a parks and wildlife GIS Analyst who served as project leader for the Colorado Trail Explorer website, which details about 85 percent of the state’s recreational trails. “We are taking a long-term approach to this. We focused on making this a sustainable and updatable tool.”
The trail map is part of Hickenlooper’s “” plan, which seeks to connect Colorado residents with open space, public lands and the outdoors. The audacious plan includes using Great Outdoors Colorado funds to . Access to trails, Hickenlooper holds, will improve Coloradans’ mental and physical health while growing the state’s animated outdoor recreation economy.
“The Colorado Trail Explorer builds on our Colorado the Beautiful initiative by giving people quick and easy access to recreational opportunities and more readily connects people with the outdoors,” Hickenlooper said in a statement unveiling the mapping project he announced
“Consolidating trail information that traditionally exists in dozens or hundreds of places into a single application makes it easier for Coloradans to find the trail options that might be just beyond their back door or near a favorite destination,” he said.
The mobile-friendly Colorado Trails System map categorizes trails by four distinctions: non-mechanized trails for hiking and horseback riding, multi-use non-motorized trails for mountain biking, trails and roads for motorized use and paved bike routes. Click on a stretch of trail and you’ll get clear rules for whatap allowed. Future upgrades could include user recommendations highlighting trail attributes, for example, mountain bikers noting a singletrack’s technical appeal or flow.
One thing every trail user wants — according to early surveys — is trail data on their phone so they can navigate trails while offline.
Thatap a complex job, Drummond said. Platforms that feature a user’s GPS location atop downloaded trail information outside of cell range is a rapidly evolving technology with different solutions for both Apple and Android mobile phones, he said.
“Itap in the works, but what we didn’t want to do is put something out there and two updates happen and suddenly itap out of date and we can’t maintain it,” he said.
When Drummond’s GIS mapping team at Colorado Parks and Wildlife started in 2015, they compiled a list of almost 500 land managers in Colorado. They whittled the list to 226 and asked each one for detailed coordinates for every trail they administer.
It was a big request of federal agencies still developing comprehensive travel management plans.
Too big for the Forest Service — the Colorado Trail Explorer does not have a comprehensive collection of Forest Service non-motorized trails.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife GIS analysts combed Forest Service websites for basic trail data, but the federal agency is currently developing its own interactive trail maps and has promised to deliver detailed GIS non-motorized trail data in October. All told, the Colorado Trail Explorer includes more than 20,000 miles of Forest Service recreational trails.
The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 8.3 million acres in Colorado, remapped areas to fit the mapping criteria, corralling every field office in the state to contribute.
Don’t forget, BLM spokesman Steve Hall said, that the bureau evolved from the General Land Office. which was charged with mapping public lands.
“Outlining boundaries and ownership of public lands is the blood and marrow of the BLM,” Hall said. “We see an outpouring of enthusiasm for public lands in Colorado and a project like this really exemplifies that.”
