About this site

Background

This trail database was started in late 2018 as a unique feature of the original Wild West Jeep Club website. The goal was to provide easily accessible trail data for Nevada and surrounding states, specifically for those trails frequently run by the club.

Over the years, it has become somewhat of a hobby of mine, and has evolved beyond what I originally planned for it. It's become a highly interactive, community driven resource for the western US offroad community.

Following the dissolution of the club in early 2024, I decided to re-home the entire database and all its features to its own domain, thus the creation of Wild West Offroad Trails, a name that's familiar to those who have enjoyed its use before, and intriguing to those who are finding it for the first time.

Nerd Stuff

Mapping & Geocoding Services

All interactive maps and static map images (trail thumbnails) on this website are generated by Mapbox (www.mapbox.com) using their GL JS and Static Images APIs.

Geocoding services, used to convert geographic coordinates into a human-readable address or location description, are provided by the Mapbox Geocoder API.

Weather

Weather data is retrieved using APIs from the National Weather Service (www.weather.gov).

Visual Graphs (Elevation Profiles and Water Flow Charts)

Visual graphs and charts are generated using the open-source ChartJS.

GPX Upload Processing

When a GPX file is uploaded to this site, onboard custom scripts scan the file for validity, then iterate through the waypoints and track or route segments, extracting necessary data, which is then stored in geoJSON format in a database. The original uploaded file is stored for diagnostic purposes, but not used again by the system.

Elevation Data

During upload processing, each GPX file track or route point is checked for elevation data. If an elevation value is missing from a location point, it is added automatically using lookups from onboard DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data. Currently, I am using DEM models from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) with a resolution of 1 arc second, about 30 meters. Testing is currently in the works to completely replace these models with 1/3 arc second, about 10 meters, and 1 meter DEM models from the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP). This transition will drastically increase the accuracy and resolution of any part of this website that deals with elevation data.

Static Track Previews and Thumbnails

Thumbnails and track previews are generated using downsampled versions of the full track. Mapbox's Static Images API has a maximum query length, so the coordinate point array is run through a script to intelligently delete elements until the array contains fewer than 1,000 coordinate points. Then the array is converted to a Google Maps Encoded Polyline, URL encoded, and passed to the API to generate the map image with the track overlay.

File Downloads

When a user downloads a file for a trail, internal scripts dynamically create the file from the database each time a download is requested. This ensures that the user is getting the absolute latest data. The scripts construct files in compliance with the GPS Exchange Format, Keyhole Markup Language XML, and GeoJSON RFC 7946 schemas.

Water Flow Data

We are experimenting with capturing and storing water flow rates for rivers and streams that intersect or closely parallel the trails. Right now, every hour on the hour, data is downloaded from DreamFlows (www.dreamflows.com) for target rivers and stored in our database. There is a historical graph on some of the trail info pages with associated flow rate data that can be interacted with.

This is highly experimental. The methods we use to capture data may change as this evolves.