Preservation Training


If you don’t know where it is you can’t preserve it! Resources for mapping and marking our nation’s emigrant trails so we can protect them are available here. Preservation activities occur at the chapter level, and are driven by people like you – people who are excited to get out on the trails and who are interested in acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to preserve our country’s emigrant trails.

Take a look at these resources and make sure to contact your local chapter's preservation officer to learn more about how you can get involved in preserving trails in your area!

Mapping Emigrant Trails (MET) Manual

OCTA released the Fifth Edition of Mapping Emigrant Trails (MET) on October 1, 2014. OCTA released the Fifth Edition of Mapping Emigrant Trails (MET) on October 1, 2014. Our continued upgrading of the guidelines and procedures on locating, verifying, classifying and plotting emigrant trails reflects our dedication to preserving trails. The MET Manual has become a national standard. Following its guidelines allows OCTA to partner with the National Park Service to protect our nation’s trails.

A wire-bound copy with protective covers may be purchased from the OCTA bookstore for $10 by members and $20 for non-members. The MET Manual in its entirety can be downloaded here for free, although you will have to download it in sections:

Training Briefs

Terrain Navigator Pro

Trimble, the maker of Terrain Navigator mapping products, is making Terrain Navigator Pro (TNP) available to OCTA members for $299 per state. Annual subscriptions to update maps and photos are $124 for each state. Each state package contains all of the USGS topographic maps in that state for 1:250,000, 1:100,000, and 1:24,000 scales. Visit the Terrain Navigator website for further details. Contact OCTA for special pricing.

2021 Mapping & Marking Workshop

OCTA’s Mapping & Marking Workshop covered topics from composite diary analysis to the pros and cons of the various mapping software products that our members use. The presentation slides and documents from the workshop are available here. Video of the presentations were uploaded to a playlist on OCTA’s YouTube channel.