Additionally, all the old forum postings from the very first forum have now been added to the current forum under the Archive topic, so those old postings are now also searchable.

To access the new comprehensive search tool, you can go here: Search Tool

If you are logged in, it will take you to a chatbot interface that will do the searching.  If you are not logged in, it will take you to a generic search tool.  Note that since the chatbot incurs additional cost, it might get taken down or stop working if it runs out of money.

The other cool new functionality is that for some of the scanned documents (the ones that got transcribed via AI), it shows the scanned document on the left side of the screen and the transcribed document on the right side of the screen.  This is particularly helpful for some of the handwritten documents which were hard to read.  The AI transcription, while not perfect is really good.  Here is an example:

https://www.trailadvocate.org/document-transcript/?doc=13

Only select documents that were transcribed with AI will have this side by side functionality.  The rest of the documents will display like they always have.

As always, if you have questions or issues with any of this new functionality, or find mistakes, feel free to send an email to webmaster@trailadvocate.org.  If there are other documents you think would benefit from being transcribed, you can send those along as well.  The real benefit of the transcription is twofold:

1. It can make difficult to read scans a lot easier to read
2. It allows the content to be searched

https://youtu.be/Ku3-TSnt6BE?si=FMRjJTTFz1bIlsRb

• Anvil Lake
• Mon-Olallie Lake (Monolallie Lake)

That still leaves these trails official status as "unknown" at this point:

• Burnt Granite
• Cottonwood Meadows
• Cripple Creek
• Double Peaks
• Gibson Lake
• Hawk Mountain
• Horseshoe Saddle
• Mt Lowe
• Russ Lake

😡

• The map selector (showing what maps cover a given area) and the map scans/PDFs have been combined into one (hopefully) more useful page now.  
• The Historical Items page has been updated to hopefully make it easier to navigate
• Several minor updates to the look and feel to make things more consistent

Hopefully people find them useful.

As always, if you find issues or problems, please send an email to webmaster@trailadvocate.org

All of the old posts were converted to the new forum, so no historical postings were lost.  Some of the features of the new forum:

• Simplified editor
• Ability to upload files to posts and place them inline - uploads are significantly faster as the images are automatically converted to a more efficient format before uploading
• Ability to upload a gpx/kml file into a post - a map will the track will display at the bottom of the post
• Ability to add emojis to posts
• Ability to add reactions (like, sad, mad, etc) to posts
• Simplified private messages
• Ability to taq posts with custom tags to make searching easier
• Ability to mention someone and they will get notified (@Username) - this feature isn't working as well as I'd like - I'm not sure how much it will get used - it may get removed at some point if it continues to be problematic.
• Ability to bookmark posts to come back to them easily in the future
• New Feature - Ability to add interactive polls
• Ability to subscribe to topic and categories so you can be notified when new postings occur
• Ability to report posts (spam, questionable content, etc).
• Ability to preview messages before posting.

Again, the purpose of this was to remove features that didn't seem useful in order to make the forum easier to use and to add a few features that would be useful (polls, track display in a post, private messages).

If you just want to experiment with the new forum to see how it works, there is a Test Forum available (only visible when you are logged in).  Feel free to post whatever in that forum.  At some point I will remove it.

If you have problems, questions or issues with the new forum, please either post a message or send a message to webmaster@trailadvocate.org.

• Rho Creek
• Top Lake

Maybe it is just taking them exceedingly long to add all the lesser used trails, or maybe someone told them they were missing.

If you find anything that is broken or suggestions for improvements, please send them to webmaster@trailadvocate.org.

1. Cache Meadow
2. Corral Springs
3. Huxley Lake

I find is strange they've lumped everything "recreation" into one list.  They show Campground, Trails, Trailheads, Horse Camps, snowparks, etc all int the same list.  It is also very inconsistent.  Some closed sites have a red "Site Closed" banner but places like Indian Henry do not - there is just a comment in the text that says it is closed.

I think it is a terrible design and incredibly unhelpful.

Road 57 is also gated at the junction with 58 so it is a dead end until they reopen the gates.

The roads page on the Forest Service website is pretty unclear about it, so I thought I'd post this here since this appears to be a new seasonal closure that will be permanent.

If you find any broken links, please send an email to webmaster@trailadvocate.org and let me know where the link was.

I think you are correct - they probably had some intern doing the work - it certainly was no one who had any familiarity whatsoever with the trails.  And it doesn't appear it went thru any real proofreading or checking by anyone.  I still don't understand why they had to upgrade - IMO it seems like a downgrade - and I'm sure they spent millions of dollars to do it.

Hiked the PCT south of Breitenbush yesterday and ws shocked to see official trail signs on both ends of the Pyramid Butte trail.  The trail from the north is difficult to follow in places.  The trail from the south is easy to follow.  The trail up the butte is mostly there, but faint in a few spots.

The 4220 road is a bit better in places but it is just as bad as it always was closer to the Breitenbush trailhead.  They cut a HUGE swath of trees off that road.  In some spots they re-gravelled the road and it is pretty good, but farther up they did nothing at all.

Ras12