GBT - Mapping
It's quit horrifying when, due to nonexisting maps of trails, tourists destroy nature by walking around without a plan. This causes unauthorized camping, skid marks destroying the sensitive steppe vegetation and litter lying around everywhere.
What's the use of a trail if no one knows it? For this reason we are constantly mapping the areas around Lake Baikal and, of course, already existing parts of the GBT. It started in 2005 when we mapped the island of Olkhon together with geography students. One of them chose this theme for the final year project.
It's very important to us that the mapping is made by non-locals to ensure a detailed trail description. There are too little information boards within the localities and too little marks that show the right way at places where beaten tracks cross the 'real' track. Local people would know where to go but our non-local team (and that's why we worked with non-locals) had the same problem finding the trail like tourists.
You can look up the already existing trail descriptions on our website.
We are planning to publish the trail maps as a book. However, we are searching for a sponsor for this.
