Trail Blazing, Trail Stewardship – I have been hearing more and more complaints about painted trail blazing (paint marks on trees that mark the path of a trail) along the White Mountains trail system. Either the trail is excessively blazed or not blazed enough. Personally, I don’t mind the trails that have little trail blazing. But I am not a fan of the excessive trail blazing. Over the years I have photographed different types of blazing styles and today I going to share a few of them.

Proper trail blazing protocol seems to vary among the trail maintenance organizations, but the ending result is the same. And most of these organizations agree that a standard trail blaze is a two inch by six inch rectangle placed about head height on trees. No painting of arrows, only a single vertical blaze, should be painted on a tree. For more information on blazing see the Randolph Mountain Club’s trail blazing protocol page.

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