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Navigation and safety

Blaze

Also called trail marker, paint blaze

What is a trail blaze?

A blaze is a painted mark or fixed tag on a tree, post or rock that confirms you are on a particular trail. The color identifies the route, and a doubled blaze is a standard warning that the trail is about to turn or something else has changed.

Blaze at a glance

Appalachian Trail
White
AT side trails
Blue
Double blaze
A turn or a change ahead
A plain white painted rectangle roughly two inches by six brushed onto the gray bark of a hardwood trunk, with blurred green forest behind.
A white blaze. The color is the route's identity: white marks the Appalachian Trail itself and blue its side trails, while other systems set their own on the local map.

Reading the marks

The color is the route's identity: the Appalachian Trail is white, its side trails to shelters and water are blue, and regional systems assign their own colors which are published on the map for that area rather than nationally standardised.

Two blazes stacked together are the one piece of grammar worth knowing. A double blaze means pay attention, usually because the trail makes a turn that is not obvious. Where the upper mark is offset to one side, that offset conventionally indicates the direction of the turn, though this is a convention rather than a guarantee and plenty of systems ignore it.

When the blazes stop

A gap of more than a few minutes usually means you left the trail at a junction you did not register. The reliable response is to turn around and walk back to the last blaze you actually saw, rather than continuing on a tread that feels right.

Blazes also stop legitimately. Above treeline there is nothing to paint, and the route switches to cairns. In wilderness areas managed for a primitive experience, marking is deliberately minimal or absent, which is a management choice rather than neglect.

What this means when you're choosing

  • The blaze color for your specific route, which is on the local map rather than standard
  • A loaded track for sections where marking thins out or stops
  • Whether the area is managed as wilderness, where minimal marking is deliberate

The common mistake

Walking on because the tread looks right

Game trails, old logging roads and social trails all look like trail. If you have not seen a blaze for a while, the distance you have to backtrack only grows. Turn around at the point you first notice, not at the point you become certain.

Common questions

What does a double blaze mean?

Pay attention: the trail is about to turn or change in a way you would otherwise miss. Where the top mark is offset left or right, that conventionally shows which way, though not every system follows it.

What color are Appalachian Trail blazes?

White for the main trail. Blue marks side trails to shelters, water and viewpoints. Other trail systems assign their own colors, published on the local map rather than nationally.

Where this is defined

Where this comes up

Guides on Tom's Hiking where blaze changes which product is right for you.

Going deeper

More in navigation and safety

Satellite messenger

A satellite messenger is a handheld device that sends text messages and an SOS through a satellite network rather than a cell tower, so it works where there is no phone signal. Most need a paid subscription to do anything at all.

Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace is a set of seven principles for using the outdoors without degrading it, published by a nonprofit of the same name and adopted by most US land managers. It covers waste, camping, fire, wildlife and how you treat other people.

Cat hole

A cat hole is a small pit dug to bury human waste in the backcountry, the standard being 6 to 8 inches deep and at least 200 feet from water, trails and camp. In many popular areas it is no longer permitted and waste must be packed out.

Switchback

A switchback is a sharp reversing turn in a trail that climbs a slope in a zigzag instead of straight up. It trades distance for a manageable gradient, and cutting the corner between two of them is the single most damaging thing a hiker routinely does.

Cairn

A cairn is a stack of rocks built to mark a route where paint blazes and a visible tread will not work, typically above treeline or across slabs. Official cairns are placed by land managers, and building your own is discouraged almost everywhere.

Scree

Scree is a slope of small loose rock, roughly gravel to fist sized, that shifts under your weight as you walk on it. It is exhausting to climb, fast and hard on the knees to descend, and it destroys footwear faster than any other common surface.

Talus

Talus is a slope of large loose blocks, from roughly dinner-plate to car sized, that you cross by stepping from one rock to the next. The hazard is not sliding but a block that rocks or shifts under your weight, which is how ankles and legs get trapped.

Yosemite Decimal System

The Yosemite Decimal System rates how technical terrain is on a scale from class 1 to class 5. Class 1 is walking, class 2 adds rough ground and occasional hand use, class 3 is scrambling where a fall could injure you, class 4 is exposed scrambling, and class 5 is roped climbing.

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