As stated in the previous post, simply entering piste routes and info into the OpenStreetMap system provides disappointing results since the OpenStreetMap’s display-map renders only the trail names. The trail paths and info are in the system but are only visible or accessible on a few obscure platforms. I was ready to begrudgingly accept this limitation when I discovered that the Northern Vermont ski areas were being rendered not just with names but with clearly defined trail borders. After some trial and error I soon realized that this had been accomplished not by drawing the trails themselves but by drawing the forested land around the the trails and thus defining the the trail system’s footprint via exclusion.
Using this trick, and a fair amount of midnight oil, I was able to create the fully-defined Magic Mountain trail map I had hoped for. Not only does it look good, it should help draw attention to the mountain because any OpenStreetMap user browsing around Southern Vermont is now likely to notice the mountain even at a fairly loose zoom setting.
In addition to the trail system and infrastructure I also mapped the neighboring, semi-lost, Timber Ridge ski area as well as many businesses and other features in downtown Londonderry, Vermont (fire dept, parks, farmers market, etc.).
The benefits of having Magic Mountain and environs thoroughly mapped in OpenStreetMaps might be modest right now but will hopefully become more significant in time since the number of companies and projects tapping into OpenStreetMaps data continues to grow rapidly. Apple, Foursquare, Mapquest, Craigs List, Flickr and Ski.com are now all using OpenStreetMap data in a full or limited capacity. It will be interesting to see how my contributions get used and rendered in the coming years
skimapping 