Helping me 'til it hurts

[marnof]

Is there such a thing as too much blazing?


signage by cubist11, on Flickr

Check out the colorful blazes and signage in a 1,000 acre preserve my family hiked in not too long ago in CT. (Not pictured: Maps of the preserve nailed to trees every mile or so, with the "you are here" marker.) I had to laugh (about every 150 feet, it seemed) when I saw these arrows pointing our way through the woods. Are these 3" plastic markers fairly common?

 

[DougPaul]

What! No QR codes?

Doug

 

[MichaelJ]

Won't someone ever think of the color-blind?!?!?

 

[marnof]

What! No QR codes?

Doug

I was reminded of this hike by that QR thread!

Won't someone ever think of the color-blind?!?!?

I suppose one could differentiate the shading on these markers if it came down to it.

I like fairly unobtrusive, but visible blazes that don't YELL at you. Maybe a bit of mystery along the way. My fave example would be Brunel Trail to Owl Cliff and Tremont in the fall.

 

[DougPaul]

I like fairly unobtrusive, but visible blazes that don't YELL at you. Maybe a bit of mystery along the way. My fave example would be Brunel Trail to Owl Cliff and Tremont in the fall.

I would like to see blazes made with glass bead paint (used on road signs) so you can see them by headlamp...

Doug

 

[Creag Nan Drochaid]

Reflective paint

For many years I have used latex gloss enamel paint for the blazes on Mt Cardigan. The gloss reflects light rather well compared to the bark or rock background. Of course, one must first be hiker enough to tote a flashlight, not a tourist...

 

[gaiagirl]

My thought about this is that either this is a very bad joke, OR people have gotten very lost there in the past and have been vocal about it to the powers that be after the fact ..... This goes SO far beyond, though, that it's mind-boggling ..... A place where I used to work has a trail system that at one time was not very well signed at all and I heard from people all the time that they had gotten lost out there. To which I had to reply, "Yeah, me too!"

 

[DougPaul]

The glass bead paint is far more visible in a headlamp. It acts like a bicycle reflector by throwing a very large reflection back in the direction of the light source. Ordinary paint scatters the reflection over a very wide angle.

My uncle (an NPS ranger) painted over the 1 on a 15 mph (black on a white background) sign with normal white paint. During the day the sign read 5 mph, but at night (under car headlights) it read 15 mph because the ordinary paint looked black compared to the glass bead paint on the rest of the sign.

Doug

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Looks like the task of marking trails was given to the local Boy Scout troop. It's amazing what a group of 11 year old males with 5lbs of nails, several hammers and lots of plastic arrows can do!

 

[marnof]

I would like to see blazes made with glass bead paint (used on road signs) so you can see them by headlamp...

Doug

That's a great idea. That would make night and low-light hiking so much easier.

My thought about this is that either this is a very bad joke, OR people have gotten very lost there in the past and have been vocal about it to the powers that be after the fact ..... This goes SO far beyond, though, that it's mind-boggling ..... A place where I used to work has a trail system that at one time was not very well signed at all and I heard from people all the time that they had gotten lost out there. To which I had to reply, "Yeah, me too!"

I thought the same too, but I think this is the case of a very wealthy community that did a great thing by turning a potential golf course/housing development into a preserve, but went a little bonkers with the trail markers.

 

[bignslow]

I would like to see blazes made with glass bead paint (used on road signs) so you can see them by headlamp...

Doug

Come hike on some of the recently marked trails in the Adirondacks. The newer trail markers are a plastic disc with the lettering written in the reflective paint. I agree that they are definitely easier to pick out using a headlamp.

 

[Trail Bandit]

Trails can also be marked with little reflective tacks such as "Bright Eyes" that stand out like beacons when illuminated by a flashlight at night. You can see them in the daytime if you really search but they are not an eyesore. There are a number of manufacturers and the tacks are inexpensive.
Hunters use them to mark a path to their tree stand so they can go out before dawn and set up shop in the tree stand.