1
The Arizona National Scenic Trail is an 800 mile recreation trail from Mexico to Utah that connects mountain ranges, canyons, deserts, forests, wilderness areas, historic sites, trail systems, points of interest, communities, and people. It serves dayhikers, backpackers, equestrians, mountain bicyclists, trail runners, nature enthusiasts, crosscountry skiers, snowshoers, and mule and llama packers. Arizona National Scenic Trail The trail can also be described in two other ways; for its features, and for the experience it provides. The Arizona Trail Association (ATA) is a non-profit membership organization, seeking active supporters of the Trail, coordinating volunteers, and provides other essential services to those that use the Arizona Trail. ATA s Mission : To coordinate the planning, development, management, and promotion of the Arizona Trail for the recreational and educational experiences of non-motorized trail users. 2
The Arizona Trail was the dream of Dale Shewalter who envisioned a cross-state trail in the 1970s, and in 1985, while he was working as a Flagstaff schoolteacher, walked from Nogales to the Utah state line to explore the feasibility of a trail traversing Arizona. The Arizona Trail is a multi-user, non-motorized trail that travels through 8 Wilderness Areas but there are routes for mountain bikers around these areas. In 1994, the Arizona Trail Association incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and became an organized voice for the trail that is funded by members, donations, business partners, and grants. Since 2000, some very significant milestones have been reached that originally seemed very difficult to achieve. These include: Establishing easements and successfully building the trail on State Trust Lands (i.e., that is managed much like private land) in Pima and Pinal Counties Working to reestablish the trail in areas severely affected by major wildfires and traversing the challenging topography in many places within Arizona. An association that provides detailed maps, trail descriptions, connecting communities of Arizona along the trail as Gateway Communities, fun events on an around the trail, trail work weekends to improve and repair the trail and education through outreach to engage and include people to help protect the trail corridor and the biodiversity that the trail crosses. The Arizona Trail was designated as a National Scenic Trail on March 30, 2009. The Arizona National Scenic Trail was completed on December 16, 2011 just east of Florence. 3
Only 11 National Scenic Trails in the country, the Arizona Trail is only the 3rd to be completed, after the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail National Scenic Trails: Appalachian Trail Arizona Trail Continental Divide Trail New England Trail Florida Trail Ice Age Trail Natchez Trace Trail North Country Trail Pacific Crest Trail Pacific Northwest Trail Potomac Heritage Trail 4
What has GIS & ArcGIS Online provided for the Arizona Trail? Merged 43 passages and 800 miles of Garmin GPS data into one GIS layer rather than separate GPX files Central hub online as a source of geography Professional maps for publications like the The Complete Guide to the Arizona National Scenic Trail, published in 2013 and available as a printed softcover or ebook available at www.aztrail.org and many recreational stores across Arizona Improved precision of data points and lines representing the trail and easily shared data to other agencies across Arizona Online and interactive access to a variety of maps linking locations to features and stories about on the trail 5
Nature Valley in the Tusayan IMAX (South Rim of the Grand Canyon) 6
Passage Maps, Profiles, and Descriptions 7
Manually re-digitized the entire Arizona Trail Partnership project with the USFS to improve the precision of the line that represents the Arizona trail Used the ATA GPS tracks as a guide to digitize at 1:1200 scale. Used high resolution aerial imagery from ESRI, surface data, and GPS data, to draw a more exact line representing the trail Worked closely with GIS contacts at each Arizona National Forest to supply this data for their own GIS Databases and add to their maps. Plus work to keep updating them in the future Continuously updating the downloadable Arizona Trail line dataset already available on AZ GEO and now a link to the feature service hosted on ArcGIS Online for Organizations. 8
ArcGIS Online account with every ArcGIS desktop with one user account My Content, Groups ArcGIS for Organizations has additional features such as Members, Status, System Health & Manage Licenses Credits needed for Geoprocessing and large data storage 9
Share content to all or different group & member combinations Used earlier this year to provide content and user access to only specific users for offline data collection on the Arizona Trail using smartphones and the free ArcGIS Collector App Created a geodatabase with domains and subtypes then published to ArcGIS Online. Added to a map for only a specific group Settings of map to allow offline mode (syncing process) 10
Online shared interactive mapping 11
Sharing data at the Arizona GIS Clearinghouse Part of the GIS Director s work is to help educate and inform other GIS professionals, like all of you, about the Arizona National Scenic Trail At AZ GEO the line and some points from the Arizona Trail Association GIS database have been uploaded to share as downloadable datasets or an REST service to add to your interactive map The goal is for the Arizona Trail Association to be known as the authoritative source for the most current information about where the Arizona National Scenic Trail located 12
Simple Interactive Trail Map For Everyone 13
Online Interactive Arizona Trail maps are available through ArcGIS Online for desktop and laptops as a webpage and embeddable into Microsoft documents (Excel & Powerpoint) like this one.. Also available through ESRI s free ArcGIS App for Android or ios devices. 14
ArcGIS App Search for any online map such as the Arizona Trail Zoom/Pan around quickly Only search for addresses, features or Arizona Trail passages When clicking on a layer s feature, there is an information pop-up window with a link to the ATA passage webpage. Uses your mobile device location (best with GPS turned on) but needs internet connection to display the map Link to ATA s passage website full of details and descriptions 15
Arizona Trail To Go App An App designed by one of our members Report trail conditions, points of interest or other items on the trail using your device s internal GPS. Optionally include a picture or item. For Trail Stewards, manage the reported information for your passage. View or map all, or selected, reported items, by passage or for multiple passages. Useable Offline For any device (Desktop, Laptop, or Mobile) using HTML 5; beta testing for ios & Android Imported GIS data for geographic reference on Google basemaps 16
Arizona Trail App Arizona Trail Association (ATA) is proud to announce the brand new Arizona Trail App. It is undoubtedly the most comprehensive digital navigational resource we have ever developed for the Arizona National Scenic Trail. This App has directly imported GIS datasets and uses downloadable base maps for complete use offline (without cell data reception). The App also contains water sources, intersections, camping and resupply location information from ATA s website. The ATA receives a portion of the proceeds of the $9.99. http://www.aztrail.org/apps.html Free preview of the Flagstaff area passage. 17
The Arizona Trail App includes just about everything a trail user would ever want to know. Some of its features include: GPS-enabled map of the Arizona Trail with waypoints Offline topo maps, satellite imagery, and photographs More than 1,100 waypoints along or near the trail Detail page for each waypoint Elevation profile with waypoints GPS-enabled data book listing of all waypoints Comprehensive water information Complete gateway community and resupply information Trailhead information Text or email your location 18
There is a free demo of the Arizona Trail App for everyone to enjoy, which includes the 36-mile San Francisco Peaks Passage of the Arizona Trail near Flagstaff. The entire 800-mile Arizona Trail App is available as an in-app purchase for only $9.99. 19
Get out and enjoy the trail http://aztrail.maps.arcgis.com The ATA is always in need of volunteers to help with many aspects of the Arizona Trail from trail work (maintaining/rerouting tread) to working with Seeds of Stewardship and building relationships with trail towns called Gateway Communities contact volunteer@aztrail.org or visit http://www.aztrail.org/volunteer.html for more details Aaron Seifert, GISP GIS Director for the Arizona Trail Association aaron@aztrail.org Cell 928-821-3561 20