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Public domain information about hiking trails in USA

• I created a free database of hiking trails - Hikipedia.com. I would like to prepopulate the site with information about as many trails as possible. I hope that you can help me find some public domain information about hiking trails in the USA. It would be best if I could get a list of publications/resources and methodically go through all the trails, one-by-one, adding the trails to Hikipedia as I go. I am willing to order some publications (published by rangers/national parks/government?) if I can freely copy the information from there. Of course I am also willing to use online resources. I am primarily looking for a good coverage of all areas of the USA. Number of trails is secondary. Trails with readily available lat/lng of trailhead are much more valuable to me than trails with only driving directions. To add a trail to the database I need: - Trailhead location (latitude/longitude) [sometimes driving directions to the trailhead are accurate enough to let me find the latitude/longitude via google maps; it is best if latitude/longitude are explicitly stated, but driving directions are also okay] - Trail's name - Trail's description written in prose, that I can copy. [I think that most information about a trail is factual and thus automatically is considered fair use (i.e. trail's length); trail's description is different - it has to be under public domain to copy it freely] - Some of the following information: - trail's length - trail's elevation gain - trail's min and max elevation - trail's hiking season (i.e. Jun - Oct) - list of trail's attractions (i.e. Summit/Waterfall/Beach/Fire lookout/etc.) - trail's difficulty rating (i.e. easy/moderate/difficult) After some research I found http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/recreation/activities/trails/mtbaker.shtml (an example of a trail description: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/recreation/activities/trails/mbrd/mbrd_0682_1.htm) This is good information, but there are 2 issues with it: 1) This information is limited to Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. I would have to spend considerable amount of time finding such pages for each area of the US. I had to spend about 1 hour to find that page. 2) I am not quite sure that this information is public domain. I think that it might be, because it is on a .fed.us website. I have also found http://www.recreation.gov Issues with that site: 1) It does link to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest website and after some considerable digging one can get to the webpage with a list of trails mentioned above. I am concerned that the amount of digging will be considerable for other areas mentioned on http://www.recreation.gov 2) Not all areas listed on this site are about hiking trails. Some of them are about fishing sites or camping sites.

• Answer:

  Lukasz, Thanks for getting back to me. Here's my take on the two specific items you identified: - Answer how I should proceed about checking public domain status of the pages that I want to copy? The reason I linked you to the firstgov.gov site earlier is because it allows searches to be restricted to only federal government sites: http://firstgovsearch.gov/search?v%3Aproject=firstgov&form=advanced-firstgov&v%3Aframe=form On this search form, you can not only enter search terms (like [ hiking trails ] for instance), but you can also specify where to search, using the "Search In" pull-down menu. By selecting "Federal Only", your results should all come from US government sites, and hence be in the public domain. One caution, though...I've noticed in the past that an occasional state-government site will pop up, even in the Federal-Only searches, so be on the alert (it's usually pretty obvious, just from the name of the site itself). On the other hand, I've never come across a case of a state complaining about copyright-violation of its text from a website -- most states seem to treat their published materials as de facto public domain, even if state law doesn't actually make it so. Here are a few links to search results from firstgov.gov that are federal-only (i.e. public domain), and provide both a tight focus on sites devoted to hiking trails (with highly relevant results), as well as a looser focus, which should turn up some additional sites of interest: [tight focus] http://firstgovsearch.gov/search?input-form=advanced-firstgov&query=&query-limit=&query-quote=hiking+trail+OR+hiking+trails&query-quote-limit=intitle%3A&query-or=&query-or-limit=&query-not=&query-not-limit=&v%3Asources=firstgov-search-select&v%3Aproject=firstgov&language=All+languages&filetype=All&sitelimit=&siteexclude=&fedstates=fed&render.list-show=150 [loose focus] http://firstgovsearch.gov/search?input-form=advanced-firstgov&query=&query-limit=&query-quote=hiking+trail+OR+hiking+trails&query-quote-limit=&query-or=&query-or-limit=&query-not=&query-not-limit=&v%3Asources=firstgov-search-select&v%3Aproject=firstgov&language=All+languages&filetype=All&sitelimit=&siteexclude=in.gov&fedstates=fed&render.list-show=100 These should get you off to a good start. ======================== As for the geographic database, you can find it here: http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) This is a very comprehensive database in terms of a broad variety of geographic features and names. I think you'll find it is a fairly good listing of trails, but not anywhere near 100% complete. It seems to focus on larger trails, for the most part. There are some tricks to using this database: --leave almost everything blank --Use the "Feature Class" pull-down menu to select 'Trails' as the feature of interest. --You also have to use the pull down to select a State, and search one state at a time (leaving it blank will search the whole country at once, but in searching for trails, it seems to freeze up the system...the only option that worked for me was one state at a time). You asked about searching for two terms: "Townsend" and "Dungeness" When you enter a term in the search box, it IS possible to search the entire US (just leave the State box blank). However, neither of these terms returned any results. However, a search on all types of features returned quite a number of hits, such as these for Dungeness: Dungeness Bay Bay WA Dungeness Spit Cape WA Dungeness Wharf Locale GA Dungeness Forks Campground Locale WA Dungeness Recreation Area Locale WA New Dungeness Lighthouse Locale WA Dungeness Lighthouse Locale WA Dungeness Natl Wildlife Ref. Park WA New Dungeness Lighthouse Park WA Dungeness Recreation Area Park WA Dungeness Place GA Dungeness Place WA Gray Wolf River Stream WA Home Creek Stream WA Dungeness River Stream WA KCDV-AM (Dungeness) Tower WA Dungeness Valley Valley WA A search (just for trails) for a more common word like [ bear ] turned up over 100 trails, such as: Bear Draft Trail Bear Rock Trail Beards Gap Trail Beards Mountain Trail Gillam Run Trail Mountain Top Trail Gilliam Run Trail Shoestring Creek Bear Wallow Creek Trail Bear Peak Trail Bear Den Trail Big Bear Gulch Ski Trail Bear Paw Ski Trail Bear Brook Trail Bear Mountain Ski Trail Bear Mountain Trail and so on. Between the firstgov.gov information, and the GNIS database, I believe you have two rich resources that should serve as good tools for your web-building project. However, if there's anything else you need, just let me know by posting a Request for Clarification, and I'm at your service. All the best, paf search strategy -- Used bookmarked sites for government and geographic information