The status of blazing?

[sierra]

I have a random observation and if I'm off base then it's me. As I have been hiking last few years, primarily the 52wav, I have noticed that blazes in general are not so great to downright poor. I know blazing can be a contentious subject, my point here is not necessarily to debate that, but to establish if blazing is being let go on purpose? I like blazes, I think they are important to keep people on the path which keeps the integrity of the trails and in the long run prevents erosion. Many turns are missed and herd paths form quite quickly. if they form at downhill turns, water can really form some ditches quick. I also hike all winter and that's when blazes really come into play, routes like Carr Mt still have pretty good paths, but the occasional blaze can be very helpful. I know we have some trail maintainers out here and also some pretty experienced hikers, are blazes going out? or is trail maintenance in general lacking?

 

[maineguy]

I always thought that the trail marking in the Whites was poor. Adirondacks were about the same. Out here, there is no blazing. Above treeline there are cairns, but as you know, most routes above timberline are just routes, not official trails.

 

[Ken MacGray]

Don't quote me on this but my general understanding is that USFS prefers a well-defined corridor over blazing. At least I recall a mention of that several years ago when I was tending to Mt. Tremont Trail. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken on this.)

It's also my understanding that no new blazing is done on ledges/rocks.

But yes, having enough volunteers is also an issue.

(This post is a good reminder to do fall cleanup on my adopted section of Downes Brook Trail, which has no blazes.)

 

[ImYourHuckleberry]

(This post is a good reminder to do fall cleanup on my adopted section of Downes Brook Trail, which has no blazes.)

I was on that trail twice this year and it's a nice trail and in good shape. Thanks for your efforts. (I can imagine it's a very tough trail in high water periods though.)

 

[sierra]

I always thought that the trail marking in the Whites was poor. Adirondacks were about the same. Out here, there is no blazing. Above treeline there are cairns, but as you know, most routes above timberline are just routes, not official trails.

I like cross country travel out west, but it's a different animal altogether. I know in CA, I had to do some major adjusting to my hiking with the minimal use of any trail markers, a two rock cairn was like gold. IN CO, some of the use trails would fade away only to be picked up later. But the primary difference above treeline for navigational purposes, is that a map and compass is fairly easy to use with line of site as you get up high. I got lost once in CO trying to find a "use trail" after coming off Mt. Columbia. I had to just forget finding it and hike out without it. The valley was so pronounced that it was a relatively easy bushwhack and I picked up the trail a few miles later. The worst part was that I was not tired, I was dead tired having just traversed over from Mt. Harvard, I think I was over 13,500 for 7 hours? Wandering around in the woods solo with no trail that far from a paved road was a nerve tester. But I got 2 14ers.

 

[DayTrip]

Adirondacks were about the same.

I haven't done a ton of hiking in the Adirondacks and Catskills (maybe 18 or 20 peaks combined) and I thought the blazing was excellent. Use very conspicuous metal disks, frequent enough spacing and easy to spot by day or headlamp. And they're color coded for North-South trails, East West Trails, etc (Red, Yellow and Blue - I forget what was what). The only thing I actually found confusing was the signs at intersections. There are plenty of signs but as I recall they mention destinations, not the trail names. It took a little getting used to (which was greatly aided by color coded markers and a quick glance at the map). For example, If you took the John Doe River Trail between Unknown Lake and Mary Smith Cabin, the signs would mention distances to these places, not that it was the John Doe River Trail.

Generally speaking I think blazes are best employed at lower elevations in open woods where a corridor, even well maintained, can be pretty vague depending on the exact type of plants and trees. As you get into scrub, most pines and above tree line the trail/corridor is usually pretty obvious and less blazing is necessary, if any at all (other than cairns above tree line or on extensive ledge in the scrub). I encounter far more challenges with trail finding here in MA and CT around my house. Blazing is quite mixed here too. No national forests though, only state and local parks, so I guess the variation is to be expected without one governing body setting the standards.

 

[sierra]

I haven't done a ton of hiking in the Adirondacks and Catskills (maybe 18 or 20 peaks combined) and I thought the blazing was excellent. Use very conspicuous metal disks, frequent enough spacing and easy to spot by day or headlamp. And they're color coded for North-South trails, East West Trails, etc (Red, Yellow and Blue - I forget what was what). The only thing I actually found confusing was the signs at intersections. There are plenty of signs but as I recall they mention destinations, not the trail names. It took a little getting used to (which was greatly aided by color coded markers and a quick glance at the map). For example, If you took the John Doe River Trail between Unknown Lake and Mary Smith Cabin, the signs would mention distances to these places, not that it was the John Doe River Trail.

Generally speaking I think blazes are best employed at lower elevations in open woods where a corridor, even well maintained, can be pretty vague depending on the exact type of plants and trees. As you get into scrub, most pines and above tree line the trail/corridor is usually pretty obvious and less blazing is necessary, if any at all (other than cairns above tree line or on extensive ledge in the scrub). I encounter far more challenges with trail finding here in MA and CT around my house. Blazing is quite mixed here too. No national forests though, only state and local parks, so I guess the variation is to be expected without one governing body setting the standards.

I like the sound of the markers in the ADK. One method of blazing or markers I have seen and always thought was very helpful was color coding trails. You get to a junction and it's easy to follow the correct color. The Belknap's use that system and I always thought it was efficient. The Belknap map I use color codes all the trails and it makes trip planning a breeze when reading the map and putting together a route using multiple trails. The Ossipee Range is another well thought our trail system. You will never find better signed junctions anywhere, I have seen 5 signs on one tree, with trail names and destinations. When I discovered the Ossipee's I thought that trail system looked daunting, but I have never even questioned a route choice at any junction. Granted the only caveat was it took a bit of research to find a map that covers the entire 10 peaks of the range, and that map (trail Bandit map) is considered taboo by some purist.

 

[jdhill08]

I started doing volunteer trail maintenance in 2023 with the USFS and during training it was communicated to me that blazing is still part of the job.

 

[dug]

Don't quote me on this but my general understanding is that USFS prefers a well-defined corridor over blazing. At least I recall a mention of that several years ago when I was tending to Mt. Tremont Trail. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken on this.)

Oh don't you worry. Correcting others is the favorite pastime of VFTT....

 

[Dana]

I do a lot of hiking in Harriman, and most of the trails there are very well glazed, to the point if overdoing it... but with all the unprepared people coming up from NYC for walk in the woods it's probably a good thing. There's not only color but symbols...the red dot, white bar, white cross, yellow triangle, blue "V" for victory, etc... and or course the "bottle cap" trail.

 

[Grey J]

Where there is a network of interconnected trails, color coded blazing can be very helpful and reassuring. Some trails do seem overly blazed in places where the treadway through a forest is quite obvious. Above treeline, cairns are imo preferable to blazes but not always present. I don't mind a little yellow paint on the rocks to show me the way on open ledges, but I don't like it when you're relying on them and then they just kind of fade away.

My worst experience with blazing (lack of) was here in Tennessee. The trail was ridiculously overblazed at the start with large metal discs nailed into the trees at close intervals, but at the farthest point out from the trailhead, where the trail lost its obvious route, the blazes disappeared! It was kind of open woods and there were multiple options. We stumbled around for a while and then just started whacking back towards the car and eventually picked up the blazes again and finished the loop. Maybe the guy ran out of blazes because he used too many early on.

 

[helmethiker]

Monadnock has a lot of blazes and route information painted on rocks, although the junction markings on the White Dot and the Red Spot for Smith Connecting trail extension have had obliteration attempts. But that is not WMNF, and some say is the 2nd most climbed mountain in the world, so keeping people on course is probably a priority for the trail maintainers.

One Monadnock challenge is that some of the trails off the Cliff Walk have the signs high up and down the trail a few feet, not at the junction itself. And for a year or so the Sidefoot trail sign was missing. I forget which trail has which issue.

 

[Andrew]

I always found paint blazing one of the most tedious and least desirable trail tasks that you really had to commit specific time to. Not that easy to go out and clear blowdowns or water bars and do a few blazes along the way, as you're bound to make a mess of yourself that way. I favored fixed reflective plastic wherever possible, and you could test and move them as needed. You need good conditions for paint blazing also, which can affect the ability to do them. Plastic has plenty of limits also.

 

[DavidG]

The Challenge Trail on Camel's Hump is blazed with yellow markers with green writing.
Trying to find them in peak leaf peeping season is pretty much impossible.
Once you find a blazed it's like winning the lottery.

 

[John H Swanson]

I come from the NYC metro area and I'm used to pretty good blazing. So when I go up north I find the blazing to be poor. I'm not sure what the issue is up there but I know and I'll explain our situation.

I do most of my hiking in the Harriman / Bear mountain parks. There are about 240 miles of trails in an area about 15 miles x 20 miles. Many of the people hiking these trails have limited hiking experience, so the blazing is done in a manner to help ensure that people who might not be able to follow a treadway don't get lost. Meaning, in general when you pass one blaze you can see the next one off in the distance. If the treadway is well defined, sometimes you have to hike 50-100 feet before you see the next blaze. Occasionally you can see 2 blazes but we try to limit that. About 8-10 years ago iirc, the park requested a conversion from paint and painted metal tags to all metal tags covered with 3M reflective tape (to aid nighttime SAR). So now we have trails blazed with blazes visible day or night (when you have a light)

When you use metal tag blazes, the nails need to be adjusted (pulled out a little) periodically due to tree growth. This is a maintenance issue. Unfortunately the maintainers did not do this adjustment in a timely manner and many of the blazes got embedded. Additionally, sometimes a maintainer would add a new blaze on an adjacent tree. So the blazing got messy and poor quality.

About 2-3 years ago. we started an initiative to reblaze all 200 miles of what's called the local trails (read: excluding AT and LP) Remove every blaze, reinstall the good reflective ones or swap out for new blaze.
Remove any overblazing and add blazes where needed to meet the above mentioned criteria. Renail with nails long enough to support several years of tree growth (1" exposed nail). About 2 miles (both ways) can be reblazed in a day. We're about 60% complete and the remainder will most likely be done within 2 years, providing we can get the blazes.

 

[Cartophile]

Back in 1877, the AMC started not just blazing, but putting up small signs on trails on the west side of the Presidentials (definitely Lowe's Path, and, I think I recall, others, too) marking the distance from the trailhead at 100 meter intervals (yes, metric). The effort was written up at the time in *Appalachia*, and an example of such signs was exhibited at the Museum of the White Mountains a few summers ago. Thank goodness that was just a passing episode in White Mtn history.

DayTrip mentions what has always struck me as a big cultural difference between the Adirondacks and the Whites: That in the former, trails are referenced more by destinations and points of origin than by names. But quite a few of the trails--not all--in the High Peaks do have names. But even then, not all of those names are used in conversation, and they seldom appear on signs. So, you'll hear hikers refer to the Shorey Shortcut or the Orebed Brook Trail, but never the Van Hoevenberg Trail, which is the most popular trail up Marcy.

This past August, I hiked one obscure Adirondack trail (the Nun-da-ga-o Ridge Trail, which would be difficult to reference without a name, although I suppose one could just leave the word 'trail' out of the name) that had exactly one metal disk, at one end. Fortunately, contrary to what the guidebook said, the footbed was very distinct except where it went over ledges.

It seems to me that I sometimes see freshly painted blazes in the Whites, but at the moment, I'm not recalling specific examples.

 

[BillyGr]

Monadnock has a lot of blazes and route information painted on rocks, although the junction markings on the White Dot and the Red Spot for Smith Connecting trail extension have had obliteration attempts. But that is not WMNF, and some say is the 2nd most climbed mountain in the world, so keeping people on course is probably a priority for the trail maintainers.

One Monadnock challenge is that some of the trails off the Cliff Walk have the signs high up and down the trail a few feet, not at the junction itself. And for a year or so the Sidefoot trail sign was missing. I forget which trail has which issue.

Plus, that one has the (somewhat more) unusual part of having such a large area at the top that is completely bare, which means that other types of marking would be far more difficult (nothing to attach markers or signs to).

 

[Creag Nan Drochaid]

The several blazing schemes above reflect the variety of mountains and landowners. Mt. Cardigan is a granite dome mountain
without much loose rock from post-glacial frost near the summit; we had quite the time finding rock enough to build 9 cairns on
the West Ridge Trail in 1986. Here are remarks on what we do, and why. - Cardigan Highlanders Volunteer Trail Crew

We blaze trails closer than some manuals recommend, because
A) Hikers unfamiliar with a trail do depend on blazes to guide them, and
B) At treeline, there is much open ledge with no obvious trail corridor to follow
without blazes. Trails wind among clumps of spruce. Without blazes on rocks,
trees, blaze boards, and cairns, there is no way to tell where the trail goes.

Mt Cardigan is 3155′ high, and the entire ridge with its 4+ miles of trail is often in clouds whose ceiling is at about 2400′ altitude. Blazes on the ledge are close together, about 5 yards. Fog is very disorienting to people, but our practice of blazing that close on ledge has no doubt kept many hikers on trail and not lost.
NH Fish and Game, and the volunteer fire departments, have fewer lost hikers to find.

Mowglis – Clark – South Ridge – Skyland Trails are tended by CHVTC and blazed in WHITE, per the blazing scheme adopted in 1987. Trails easterly from there are tended by AMC and are blazed in YELLOW. Trails westerly from there are tended by CHVTC and blazed in ORANGE. In 2024, we volunteers have trimmed brush along most of the white-blaze trails, and blazed 3 miles from Orange Cove to Rimrock in WHITE. Total this work 79 hrs.

 

[VaMoose]

I agree with Sierra that blazes are important and serve a good purpose. Not only could they help prevent herd paths, but there is the human safety element to consider. How many hikers have gotten in trouble and perhaps dangerous situations because of a poorly marked trail? Rescue teams then are sent out in all sorts of conditions to look for them. In the process they are not only inconvenienced, but can be put in danger. Having well marked trails should decrease the number of rescues needed. I maintain a quarter mile loop nature trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway that was not blazed when I adopted it. What could possibly go wrong? While doing maintenance one day a man told me "I lost the trail." Thankfully he found his way back. On my next maintenance trip I blazed that trail. In a personal example, in the Whites I was descending the North Carter Trail when it seemed I was walking in a creek rather than a trail. This went on and I wondered if I had lost the trail. I was ready to turn around when I spied a lonely blaze straight ahead. I thought "bless the person who painted that blaze."

 

[sierra]

The several blazing schemes above reflect the variety of mountains and landowners. Mt. Cardigan is a granite dome mountain
without much loose rock from post-glacial frost near the summit; we had quite the time finding rock enough to build 9 cairns on
the West Ridge Trail in 1986. Here are remarks on what we do, and why. - Cardigan Highlanders Volunteer Trail Crew

We blaze trails closer than some manuals recommend, because
A) Hikers unfamiliar with a trail do depend on blazes to guide them, and
B) At treeline, there is much open ledge with no obvious trail corridor to follow
without blazes. Trails wind among clumps of spruce. Without blazes on rocks,
trees, blaze boards, and cairns, there is no way to tell where the trail goes.

Mt Cardigan is 3155′ high, and the entire ridge with its 4+ miles of trail is often in clouds whose ceiling is at about 2400′ altitude. Blazes on the ledge are close together, about 5 yards. Fog is very disorienting to people, but our practice of blazing that close on ledge has no doubt kept many hikers on trail and not lost.
NH Fish and Game, and the volunteer fire departments, have fewer lost hikers to find.

Mowglis – Clark – South Ridge – Skyland Trails are tended by CHVTC and blazed in WHITE, per the blazing scheme adopted in 1987. Trails easterly from there are tended by AMC and are blazed in YELLOW. Trails westerly from there are tended by CHVTC and blazed in ORANGE. In 2024, we volunteers have trimmed brush along most of the white-blaze trails, and blazed 3 miles from Orange Cove to Rimrock in WHITE. Total this work 79 hrs.

Very informative, I actually was hoping you would chime in. Thank you.