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  1. Nan Weston & Sharon Mills 2. Park Lyndon & W-P Trail 3. Leonard Preserve 4. West Lake Preserve 5. Stinchfield Woods 6. Brauer Preserve 7. Sloan Preserve 8. Scio Woods Preserve 9. Saginaw Forest & Dolph 10. Draper-Houston Preserve 11. Bird, Barton & Kuebler Langford 12. Argo, Bluffs & Bandemer 13. The Arb, Gallup & Furstenberg 14. Pittsfield Preserve 15. Whitmore Lake Preserve 16. Lillie Park & Johnson Preserve 17. Marshall, Goodrich & more 18. Matthaei Botanical Gardens 18A. Parker Mill & MBG Trail 19. LeFurge Woods & SGN Trail 20. Kosch, Weatherbee & more 21. Crosswinds Marsh
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  P1. Watkins Lake State Park P2. Waterloo Recreation Area P3. Pinckney Recreation Area P4. Brighton Recreation Area P5. Island Lake Recreation Area P6. Maybury State Park P7. Proud Lake Recreation Area P8. Highland Recreation Area
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About Route Maps and GPX

What is GPX?

GPX is a standard markup file format for exchanging GPS data. It is widely used for specifying routes followed by hikers, bikers, and vehicles [Wikipedia ].

What can I do with a GPX route map?

There are many apps and software packages for visualizing, analyzing, and creating route maps in this format. For mobile devices, there are apps that will assist you in real time while you follow a GPX-specified route, or record your own track as you go.

The links to GPX route maps on these web pages have the "download" attribute set, which means that when you click or tap on the link, your browser will take the hint that it should download the file. At the same time, the web server will inform your browser that the incoming file is in XML format. Your browser may also offer you the option to open the downloaded file, but opening it will require a GPX-aware app.

A visualization app:

For analysis and visualization of GPX route maps on my desktop or laptop, I've been happy with GPXSee , a free (GPL) software package available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and Android. I have it configured to use the high-resolution OpenStreetMap  as the base layer for displaying routes, and I have Firefox configured to "Always ask" when I click on an XML file. This affords me the option to open the file with GPXSee.

Included below is a screen shot of a GPXSee-rendered route map for the Hickory Ridge Trail [see Hike P5].

What about navigation?

For navigation while on the trail or for recording your own tracks, I highly recommend the CoMaps  app, available for iOS and Android. It is free, ad-free, privacy-focused, and works off-line once you have followed the prompts to download the latest OpenStreetMap data for your regions of interest.

With a Chrome browser on Android, opening one of my route maps in CoMaps should work as follows:

• Tap the link. A Chrome pop-up should notify you that the file has been downloaded.
• In the CoMaps app, select the "Import" option from the "Bookmarks and Tracks" menu:
  • Locate the file within the "Download" folder of your device.
  • Click on the "expander" icon located on the right, adjacent to the file name.
  • Look for a new entry in the "Bookmarks and Tracks" menu.

Here's a link to my GPX file for the Hickory Ridge Trail if you want to try it now: IsLk-HickRidge.gpx.