Route Refinement

Route Refinement is a Federal Action

Thank you for your interest in a possible route refinement of one of the ten national historic trails administered by National Trails Intermountain Region.

• National Trails Intermountain Region (NTIR), National Park Service, is not authorized to add new routes or substantial mileage to designated national historic trails.
• When current research demonstrates that the historical route of travel is not consistent with the national historic trail's already designated alignment, then a route refinement may be in order (note: the designated alignment does not always need to be adjusted, especially when the change is minor. NTIR will make this decision on a case-by-case basis, with input from trail partners/co-administrators).
• Since refining the route is a federal action, the data NTIR receives and reviews needs to be appropriate and complete before adjusting the alignment.

The process described below is an action under NTIR partnership agreements, similar to signing requests and prioritization of projects, which the national association submits to NTIR.

The national association leadership should consider prioritizing route refinement proposals based on other related trail initiatives, such as signing, that could be impacted by these changes. Leadership should also consider prioritizing proposed route refinement proposals that may move an alignment closer to or farther away from a known federal undertaking that has potential to affect the NHT, so that the change can be taken into consideration by the federal lead agency that is analyzing effects.

NTIR will accept only complete packages for route refinement proposals that have been reviewed, approved, and forwarded by the trail association’s national leadership (such as association manager, association director, or the board of directors).* Use the checklist provided below to ensure that your package is complete. Complete submissions will be accepted no more than twice a year, in November and March (Exceptions may be made in cases where a federal agency is analyzing NEPA effects of a proposed action or NHPA potential effects of a proposed undertaking to an NHT).

• Individual proponents that are members of the NHT trail association must coordinate with the appropriate national trail association leadership on all route refinement requests.
• Proponents that do not have an affiliation with the NHT’s national trail association are encouraged to contact and work with the trail association but may also contact NTIR directly with their proposals, following the same protocols described herein. Please contact NTIR if you need the trail association contact information.
• Proponents of NHTs that do not have a national trail association may contact NTIR directly with their proposals, following the same protocols described herein.

Route Refinement Submission Package Requirements

The national trail association leadership will collect, coordinate, review, and compile the following documentation into a complete package of no more than 20 legible pages of historic documentation (not including maps/GIS data) for submission to NTIR for consideration.

Leadership may send the completed, reviewed proposal packages as a zip file or via the NPS Microsoft Teams file sharing system to:

• Brian Deaton ([e-mail])
• Angélica Sánchez-Clark ([e-mail])
• Guy McClellan ([e-mail])

Before submitting the final package, contact Angélica Sánchez-Clark or Guy McClellan for instructions on submitting a large file to the NPS.

NTIR will not accept raw data, hard copy materials, or more than 20 pages of historic documentation per route refinement proposal. If additional documentation is required to make a determination on the route refinement proposal, NTIR will request it. Incomplete packages or those not meeting the requirements listed below will not be accepted and will be returned.

Submission Package

Use this section as a checklist for your final submission.

A cover page that lists:

• Date
• Name of National Historic Trail
• Name and contact information of association leadership representative submitting package
• Name and contact information of primary proponent that initiated request with trail association leadership/or directly with NTIR Proposed change in alignment (state, county, specific beginning/ending points)
• List of counties affected (All route refinements proposals must be divided by county; this will facilitate the collection and review of data for both the association/proponent and NTIR)
• Indicate land management category of the new trail mileage (for example, Private, Local [city/county], State, Federal [National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, etc.].
• In one page or less, explain why the proposed refinement is a more accurate representation of the historic route of travel

Provide digital copies of the most relevant GIS data and historical documentation (no more than 20 legible pages) that supports the need for a route refinement, organized into one digital file. Individual documentation must be relevant to the specific segments of the refinement alignment. If the refinement proposal includes multiple segments, be sure to clarify what segments are based on what documentation. Clippings, diary entries, and other historical materials submitted must include source information (name and date of publication or writing, author, etc.). Trail association leadership representative/proponent will check the boxes as appropriate:

• Newspaper clippings
• Diary entries
• Brief, relevant selections/passages from secondary or primary sources Archeological reports
• Complete bibliographic citations of these sources
• Historic photos that provide locational information and date or approximate date of the image
• Aerial Photos and/or satellite images of any existing trail remnants or other physical evidence of trail/road
• GIS Data/Mapping Documentation, digital spatial mapping data is preferred (see spatial data below); however, hand plotted maps will be accepted if this is the only way to represent the refinement:
  • Spatial data (shapefiles, file geodatabases, kml, kmz (Google Earth), GPS – gpx, or other format) and other related sources (historic imagery, high resolution imagery, LiDAR/LiDAR hillshades – Light Detection and Ranging, etc.) compiled into a zip file
  • Links to the data if available online Metadata (documentation of the data)—scale of spatial data, source of spatial data digitization, GPS unit used, etc.
  • Hand Plotted Maps on either USGS 24K or 100K Quad Maps (These need to be high resolution pdf scans or high-resolution tiff files, preferably 300 dpi)
  • Historic Maps and General Land Office plats and survey notes at a scale useful for mapping the designated alignment [not smaller than 100K (more zoomed out)]

For clarification on the GIS requirements or help with methods of creating the spatial data, please contact GIS specialist Brian Deaton at [e-mail].