Difficulty Maintaining Accuracy While Editing Trail Features in Rural Areas

General talk
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Hi everyone, I’ve recently taken on a project to improve the mapping of hiking trails in a fairly remote rural area, and I’ve been running into a few editing challenges that I’m hoping someone here can help me work through. I’ve been using iD and JOSM depending on the complexity of the edit, and my focus has been on adding missing footpaths, fixing geometry, and tagging information like trail difficulty and surface type. The issue is, the satellite imagery and GPS tracks don’t always align well, and this makes it very difficult to ensure my edits are actually improving the map and not accidentally degrading its accuracy.

One of the problems I’m having is with satellite imagery offset. In some spots, the imagery from Bing and Esri is noticeably shifted, and aligning trails accurately becomes guesswork unless I have a GPS trace. I’ve tried using GPS traces from my own hikes (recorded with a Garmin GPSMAP device), but even those sometimes drift in areas with thick tree cover or deep valleys. I’ve heard about using imagery alignment layers and collecting multiple traces, but I’m still not confident I’m doing it right. Has anyone found a consistent method for correcting or validating this in areas where there’s very little reference data?

Another issue is tagging. A lot of the trails I’m mapping are informal—created by locals or wildlife, but used regularly by hikers. They don’t appear on official trail maps, and some are not maintained at all. I’m not always sure whether to tag them as path, footway, or even if I should be mapping them in the first place if they’re not part of a designated trail network. I want to contribute useful data for outdoor navigation apps like OsmAnd and Organic Maps, but I’m concerned about adding paths that might be unsafe or inaccessible. Is there a community consensus or guideline on how to handle these kinds of “unofficial” trails?

Additionally, I’ve been exploring the idea of adding trailhead amenities like signage, benches, or parking areas. The problem is, I don’t always have photos or precise coordinates—just notes I took while hiking. Sometimes I try to piece things together later using clips I’ve recorded and edited in capcut, which helps jog my memory about the layout or nearby features. Still, I wonder—is it acceptable to estimate locations for these features, or should I hold off until I can verify them with a GPS-tagged photo or exact coordinates? I want to be helpful, not harmful, especially in areas where people might depend on this info for planning hikes or finding accessible trailheads.

Finally, I’d appreciate any general advice from those of you who’ve done a lot of rural trail mapping. I’m doing my best to contribute quality edits, but I’m still fairly new to editing in areas that lack existing data. It’s easy to feel unsure about my changes when there’s not much to compare against. If there are tools, workflows, or tagging presets that you’ve found especially useful for mapping remote outdoor areas, I’d love to hear about them. Thanks in advance for any help or insights you can offer!

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Use the Strava Heatmap. It is an average of all of the GPS traces from all of the Strava users over the past year. It is updated monthly.

If you are in the US, check out the USGS 3D elevation program data. Trails the are cut or worn into the surrounding terrain often show up and this data source is accurate to within a meter according to the USGS.

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Seconding USGS 3DEP (or a different DEM available in your area) - I find it invaluable when mapping in remote, densely forested areas. Here’s an example, from contributing during the Hurricane Helene mapping project (same exact area in both images)

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I also rely on DEM for mapping forest tracks and paths - way better than any GPS track or aerial imagery specialiy in densely wooded areas, as one can see in the sample given by @Lumikeiju .

DEM will also help you to place any object like signposts or benches in the correct location. And even if such object may not be placed perfectly, don’t worry. Other hikers may be grateful to know there must be a shelter around, even if it will take them a couple of minutes to find it some 20 meters away from the spot where it is mapped.

Again, whatever you find on the ground, feel free to map it. For inofficial trails there is the tag informal=yes. If such informal trail is signed as “private property” “no trespassing” or the like you can use the appropriate access=* tag for it. You are not doing anything wrong by mapping a trail which is existing, even if the visibility is poor or it may be difficult to follow. Go ahead and have fun!

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All good answers.

As far as the informal paths, you can tag as such as appropriate:

informal=yes

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Hello Glenphilli, I understand your problem. For several years, several years ago, I was chair of the board for the YMCA residential camp I went to as a child. When I was a kid the camp was advertised as 1000 acres.

There had never been a scaled map created of any of the camp. Over the years someone had created several different thematic maps, showing the locaitons of POI in relation to one another, but none had any trails. At some point someone had copied parts of the two USGS 7.5’ maps of the area. They showed a couple of the roads and some buildings.

I used the GPS of on my iPhone with GPS Kit and did my best to map the trails. I ended up creating a map with my many GPS tracks on it. Due to the relative low accuracy (1 meter at best) of the iPhone I figured it was best to use the mutiple tracks to indicate the trails. The mutiple tracks gave users very good indication of the routes of the trails, their length, and where they started and ended… At the time I was very new to cartography and GPS. For my base map I used the USGS 7.5’ maps. My efforts were helpful for guests, campers, staff and parents. I enede up creating two different versions. On one I focused on the buildings, camper cabins, program areas, and the roads to and from them. I called this a “Day User” map. On the second map I zoomed out to show a bit beyond the camp’s boundaries, included all the info from the first map, and added all the trails where I able to get a GPS track.

The camp is located in a valley and had been farm land back until the 1940s. I color coded the trail tracks. Trails included on the Day User map were all green lines, commonly used. On the second map, I kept those trails the same color, but added all the other trails. The trails used only ocasionally I assigned yellow lines to, and trails that came to a dead end I colored red.

All my work was intended for private use, and in printed format.

Good luck!!

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you could use fixme= tags on the nodes to explain that the location is general not precise (I don’t know if others use this practice, it’s something I’ve done in the past tho)

alternatively (or additionally), you could use a mobile editor like Every Door (or maybe StreetComplete too these days) to add these when you’re at the trailhead (or even along the trail)

my thought on this is even if you’re adding data that’s just a bit inaccurate (at least spatially), you’re still improving the data quite a bit, and it can always be refined too. perfect is the enemy of good

happy mapping~