2026

HEY, there is a new rating system, and I like it, so think about this for trails: International Trail Rating System More here: traileaffectpodcast – ITRS I have a small suspicion that it will go poorly in the US because, well, it’s the US, we often thumb our noses at anything International, and are stupid […]

The old jump design page on Trailism started as a rough calculator I uploaded back in 2014. It worked, but it never grew into what I actually wanted: something that treated trail features as a real physics problem instead of a back-of-the-napkin sketch. That tool finally exists, and it has its own home now: TrailACT

In 1992 I lived at home and kept my nose in the books while attending the University of Arizona. At that time one of my circles of friends and acquaintances outside of botany was a number or astronomy and mathematics geeks of sorts, and law student or two. I think it was among them that

I had an issue with the plugin running the jump calculator. I really don’t know when it failed, but the plugin wrecked the site for a minute. 2026 is the 10 year anniversary of the Jump Calculator! Though it began in 2014/15, 2016 it went live: AND thank goodness for the WAY BACK MACHINE: https://web.archive.org/web/20160319230759/http://trailism.com/trail-science/jump-design/

I’m back home in NY and snowed in with an injury, so I had a spare minute to share an update to the stairs on trails page… I made the “shoehorning” steps image below as a contractor I was working for was struggling with a state employee who insisted that steps should NEVER be put