Trails On Google Maps: The Future Is Not Quite Now

Google maps turns out to be an excellent tool for measuring road courses. So if you have a running route that exclusively follows roads, or a road race that does the same, or a bicycling route, then Google maps can give you a very good idea as to total length of the route as well as distances along the way.

Off road you're back on your own. However, some trails are making their way into the Google maps database. The first one I noticed was portions of the Appalachian Trail near Fontana Dam in North Carolina. Now, if the entire trail were available online then this would be useful indeed, and not just for through hikers blogging their way from the south end of the trail on Springer Mountain, Georgia to the north end of the trail on Mount Katahdin, Maine (or vice versa). Unfortunately, parts of the trail are missing from the database, and the portions of the Appalachian Trail that made it into the database are not always accurate. For instance, here's part of a walk I did in north Georgia during August, 2008, from Unicoi Gap to Indian Grave Gap over Rocky Mountain:




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It was easy enough to "tell" Google the locations of the gaps, and by specifying a "walking" route rather than a "driving" route, Google sent me along the Appalachian trail rather than along the highway. However, Google told me that the length of the walk is 1.8 miles, and every source I've consulted puts the actual distance at 2.7 miles. If I'm hiking from Georgia to Maine (or Maine to Georgia), that's a large percentage of error.

Closer to my home in Tallahassee, Florida, the St Marks Trail has also made it onto Google maps. You'd think this would be an easy bit of cartography, seeing as the St Marks Trail is a rail trail. Once again, though, portions of the trail are missing from Google maps. At other places, the map differs significantly from the route of the actual trail. At one place in Woodville, Google maps shows the St Marks Trail veering from its actual course to go through a building.

Other rail trails within a short drive from Tallahassee are missing entirely from Google maps--the Four Freedoms Trail in Madison, for instance, altho' it does show the defunct railroad that the trail replaced.

So Google maps will still find a way for you to drive from Pahokee to Pascagoula and will find a "Dairy Queen" for you along the way, but it's still not terribly useful if your bicycle or your feet take you off the roads and onto the trails.