One of the most satisfying aspects of contributing to OpenStreetMap for me is walking a previously unmapped hiking trail, adding it to OSM, and seeing it appear on waymarkedtrails.org (and later in various hiking-oriented Android apps).
Recently I had the chance to survey a short waymarked trail that was completely unmapped (both the physical path and the waymarking). Here are the "before and after" screenshots from hiking.waymarkedtrails.org.
As well as mapping the trail, I was able to add a picnic table, antenna, memorial plaque, and information board.
I also added some landcover details. This turned out to be the most time-consuming part, mainly because I had to drastically reduce a large polygon that was supposed to represent olive groves but in fact included large swathes of pine forest and bare rock - a remnant of a CORINE import I think.
The excursion wasn't just about surveying of course - the reason I wanted to map the trail in the first place was because it has great views of the Guadalhorce Valley and the town of Álora.
A few non-mapping-related photos on Pixelfed (partly an excuse to see what Pixelfed links look like on Mastodon):
A few days ago I walked the Monte Redondo trail near Álora, signposted as SL-A 031. It is a short walks that connects to the longer Monte Hacho trail, with views towards the Sierra de Las Nieves to the west, and the town and castle of Álora to the east. #hiking @mountains #alora #malaga
Alan Grant
Spanish Highs, Sierra Nevada