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Re: [at-l] re: Trail Blazes and trail preferences

 
> Standards for blazing are set by the trail maintaining clubs.  Some have
> well-developed standards, others give less leadership in this regard to
> individual maintainers.
Although there are some standards set by ATC. Namely vertical 2x6 white
blaze is standard and clubs must choose one of vertical or offset turn
blazes, i.e. random is not allowed (however when all you have to blaze is a
1 inch sapling you can guess what you get.)

The NY-NJ Trail Conference has a number of guidelines on blazing. All our
turn blazes are offset, both AT and non-AT trails. The general rule is that
you should be able to see one blaze and not two except where more are
needed to eliminate confusion. On long stretches of wood roads or other
completely obvious paths with no places to make mistakes even fewer blazes
are reasonable. Every turn blaze should be immediately followed by a
confirmation blaze, normally within 20-50 feet. Turn blazes should be
reserved for trail intersections, if not straight across, and 90 degree or
more angle turns. Small angle turns get only a single blaze. We strongly
avoid blazes on rocks unless that is all that there is. Neatness is
encouraged. Many places it is advisable to underpaint the blaze with 3x7
black or other dark color if you have to blaze a white birch or some other
very light colored tree.

We tend to overblaze reroutes until the path becomes well established and
then remove the excess. When blazing a reroute I take 50 steps (150 feet)
and then look for a good spot and may mark some less than 90 degree turns
if people might go astray.

There are other rules that most maintainers should also follow. Few paints
last more than 5 years and critical blazes are all to often on trees that
have fallen so they should always have at least a mini-paint kit with them.
It is important to also have a scraper or neutralizing paint to reduce the
size of blazes on trees where the blaze has grown as the tree has grown. I
have seen some 6x12 inch monsters. Another good rule is to not put both N
and S bound blazes on the same tree because you lose two blazes when the
tree dies. The best way of achieving this is to always paint blazes on the
right side of the trail when possible.

The only blazes that we have that are every 20 feet or even less is NPS
boundary blazes. Yuck, but that is what the specs used to say - blaze every
tree within 2 feet of the boundary. I think NPS has reduced that
requirement.

Of course rules and guildlines are frequently not followed so we like to
hear about the bad examples so we can fix them.

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