I finally finished the project of placing the trails, junctions, and trailhead GPS data for Granite Chief on GaiaGPS. This is my platform of choice, selected after evaluating about 10 possible options, but if you use another, you can download the gpx files and put them into your own.

To view the trail, junction, and trailhead data, go to https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/folder/5b4e23c555d0dc5fd992f16948fb09de/. You can turn on or off (hide) the various elements, change focus, and, if you are a member, overlay and intermix a large number of base map layers. To be honest, GaiaGPS carries through some display elements even when the creator logs out, so I’m not sure exactly what you will see when you go there. Please let me know if you have comments or questions. The element ‘Granite Chief Wilderness’ is the new boundary of the wilderness, after the additions that resulted from the American River Conservancy purchase and restoration of timberlands in the northwest corner.

The trail maps and junction descriptions have been removed from this website in order to reduce the number of things I need to maintain. The trailheads page is still there. You will also see a page specific to the McKinstry Trail, which is the one trail or route that I have not yet been able to get a GPS track for. Maybe this year! I also created a new category of trail, a route, shown in yellow. These are old trails that used to be maintained but no longer are, and have deteriorated to the point where they require higher level route finding skills to use. I don’t want to discard them, but also don’t want anyone to get the impression that they are trails for average users.

This is the key to the map, which unfortunately GaiaGPS can’t display:

• red = Pacific Crest Trail
• purple = other trails within the wilderness
• orange = access trails which are outside the wilderness
• yellow = routes; these were formerly trails, but are now unmaintained and difficult to follow, and should be used only by people with a high level of trail finding skill
• black = access roads (Barker Pass Rd)

I also dropped the Conditions page, as it was very out of date. The blog posts serve to share information about trail and snow conditions, to the degree I have the information, and I encourage users of the wildnerness and this blog to comment there.

All in all, hoping to be useful to you while making it easier for me to maintain the blog/website. Just like you, I’d rather be out there!