Tracking Trail Mileage Guidelines - 2013
The purpose of this guideline is to help you record and track trail miles. You will need
to track both wilderness trail miles and non-wilderness trail miles.
There is no dollar value assigned to this data. This data will give a better picture of
trail miles actually worked on, improved and or maintained each season. Remember if
you have a work crew of five people and clear five miles of trail, you have cleared five
miles of trail, not 25 miles. If a portion of a trail has previously been cleared or worked
on, but again for a second or third time still needs maintenance, that section should be
counted each time it is worked on.
1. Go to the Excel Workbook click on the Trail Miles Tab (sheet) and record trail name, trail
number, agency code, district and actual length of the trail. Designate whether this is a
wilderness use code W or a non-wilderness trail use code NW. If the trail goes into and out
of W and NW more than once then record as codes W/NW. Use land management agency
records, land management agency maps, Green Trail Maps, or GPS records to obtain length
of trails. Also, work with your chapter Trail Bosses or Trail Maintenance folks to obtain trail
miles. This information will be the same every year.
2. Use one line for each trail for tracking yearly trail mileage. You have seven different
columns with these headings: DATE, NW and, W to record your trail miles before starting a
new line. If you start a new line DO NOT input the trail length again.
3. Record date of trail work, trail miles maintained and if the trail miles are wilderness or
non-wilderness. If the trail miles maintained go into and out of the wilderness, make sure
you record the date of the trail work, record the NW trail miles and then the W trail miles.
You could possibly clear trails in and out of the wilderness 2 or 3 times, continue to record
your trail miles maintained on the same line.
4. If you are working in private timber such as Simpson Timber or other agencies such as
DNR Elbe Hills and the area has no designated trail numbers or names. Record that
information as such: Kennedy Creek Trail system – GD (for Green Diamond) – 25 miles of
trails
5. The overall length of the trail remains the same. If a previously section of trail has been
cleared or worked on but you need to maintain or clear it again and then a third or fourth
time, you will record that section with the date and NW or W and number of trail miles
maintained.
6. Build yourself a manual (cheat sheet) of all the trails used by your chapter. This
information will very rarely change from year to year, so when you go to input your trail
miles you will have the trail data available without having to track down your trail
maintenance folks (trail name, trail number, trail length and if trail is in wilderness or nonwilderness).
Revised April 10, 2013
7. Why tracking trail miles are important: 1) Collection of data for trail miles maintained
are used for land management agency records; each have their own set of data
requirements. They use the trail miles maintained records for tracking purposes so that the
land manager doesn’t send out a trail crew to maintain a section of trail that BCHW
volunteers have already maintained. Land managers also use trail miles to apply for trail
maintenance grants. 2) BCHW-Chapters use trail miles to apply for RTP and other grants.
3) BCHA and BCHW use trail miles maintained for legislative reporting.
8.
Record the Trail miles in 10ths of a mile (560ft) 1.3 miles etc.
9. See Example below. Remember this is in MS Word vs. MS Excel spreadsheet so your table
example isn’t exactly to scale.
Example:
Packwood Lake Trail #78 is 10 miles long. 4 miles are in the wilderness and 6 miles are out of the
wilderness. (#1) On one work party the work crew cleared 4 miles of non-wilderness trail. Record
the date and 4 non-wilderness (NW) trail miles maintained. (#2) On a second work party on a
different day two miles of wilderness trail were cleared. Record the new date and 2 wilderness (W)
trail miles maintained. (#3) And on a third work party the trail crew cleared the remaining 2 miles of
wilderness trail. Record the date and 2 wilderness (W) trail miles maintained. (#4) On a fourth work
party the remaining 2 miles of non-wilderness trail was maintained at nine miles in. Record the new
date and 2 miles non-wilderness (NW) trail miles maintained. (#5) Then a large wind storm came up
two weeks later and downed trees across some of the trail that had already been cleared. That
portion was re-cleared, the crew rode in 9 miles and re-cleared 1 mile of the trail. Record the new
date and 1 mile non-wilderness (NW) trial miles maintained.
The overall length of Packwood Lake Trail #78 is always 10 miles regardless of how many
times the work crews have to go in.
.
(Trail Miles Maintained – Non-Wilderness or Wilderness)
Trail
Name
Packwood Lake
Trail
Number
Agency
Code
District
78
A
GPNF
Trail
Length
W
NW
#1
DATE
NW
10
W/NW
05/15
4
W
Revised April 10, 2013
NW
05/20
#4
Continued
From top
Row in Excel
#2
DATE
W
#3
DATE
2
05/29
W
DATE
NW
W
2
#5
DATE
NW
06/04
2
W
DATE
NW
06/15
1
NW
W