Well, we here at COSS are continually looking for ways to make open space users have a better experience. One of the things we are doing with the full COSS website is building a table of every trail system in Chelmsford. This means all trails on all land types. Not just conservation or land trust parcels, but everything the public can walk.
This has turned out to be a challenge. Many of the online maps from the town are older, and in a few places the trail lines are not correct anymore. Yesterday, just before the walk, I noticed something interesting. The car map showed all the trails at Thanksgiving Forest. Not only the primary loop but all the secondary trails too. I asked Will about this, and he said the car system uses a paid mapping service.
A paid service is not going to work with our small volunteer budget, so I spent a few hours digging. The good news is that there is a free source we can use. OpenStreetMap is a public, volunteer-supported map that has very accurate trail data. The Thanksgiving Forest map on OpenStreetMap is 100 percent complete. There is only a tiny location shift of about twenty feet in one spot. For example, the trail near First Day Farm is actually on town land, not private land.
Below is the Thanksgiving Forest map we created using this free source. Take a look and explore the trails. I will be exploring this system more and will give an update soon.
How to see the Thanksgiving Forest map yourself
Direct link to Thanksgiving Forest on OpenStreetMap
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/42.564367/-71.337898
This opens the map centered on the forest.
Link with a marker added at the entrance
https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=42.564367&mlon=-71.337898#map=17/42.564367/-71.337898
If you want to look it up manually
Go to https://www.openstreetmap.org
In the search box type: Thanksgiving Forest Chelmsford MA
Zoom in and the full trail network will appear
(primary loops, connectors, and side paths)
This will be the first of many updated trail posts as we work toward building a full, town-wide trail guide for Chelmsford.