PCT Tracker

A lightweight personal trail tracker built with GitHub Pages.

Live map, stats, photos, and trail updates — synced automatically from Strava. Designed to be simple, robust, and editable from a phone while on trail.

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What this site does

• Map

  • Displays your recorded trail track (synced from Strava)
  • PCT full route shown as a thin background line for context
  • Live position marker with blinking dot

• Statistics

  • Total distance, elevation, time, average speed
  • Per-activity averages

• Insights

  • Last active day: km, time, elevation, number of segments
  • Recent days bar chart (up to 7 active days)
  • PCT progress bar with km/mi remaining
  • Timeline: first/last activity, active days, rest days
  • Longest and shortest day

• Trail Updates

  • Simple text-based updates written in Markdown
  • Fast to edit from a phone while on trail

• Photos

  • Auto-synced from a Flickr album
  • No local image management needed

• Gear

  • Embedded gear list from grampacker.net
  • Always up to date without manual copying

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How it works

• Built with GitHub Pages (Jekyll) — no server, no database
• Activity data synced automatically via a GitHub Actions workflow (Strava API)
• A keep-alive workflow runs every 2 weeks to prevent GitHub from disabling the repo
• Strava token age is monitored — a warning appears in the logs after 150 days
• Track coordinates are downsampled to max 300 points per activity to keep the map fast
• The PCT centerline is loaded from data/Full_PCT_Simplified.geojson (official PCTA data)

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Folder structure

.
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       ├── strava_sync.yml      # Auto-sync track from Strava (hourly)
│       └── keep-alive.yml       # Keeps repo active (runs 1st & 15th of month)
├── _layouts/                    # Jekyll page layouts
├── assets/
│   ├── css/style.css            # All styles
│   └── js/map.js                # Map, stats, insights logic
├── data/
│   ├── track.geojson            # Your recorded track (auto-updated)
│   ├── latest.json              # Latest position (auto-updated)
│   ├── strava_state.json        # Sync state & token info
│   └── Full_PCT_Simplified.geojson  # PCT centerline (PCTA, CC BY 4.0)
├── scripts/
│   └── strava_sync.py           # Python sync script
├── index.md                     # Map & statistics page
├── updates.md                   # Trail updates
├── photos.md                    # Flickr photo gallery
├── gear.md                      # Gear & Lighterpack
├── _config.yml                  # Jekyll config (title, baseurl)
└── README.md

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Why this exists

This project is meant to be:

• simple and fast to use from a phone
• automatic — no manual data entry while hiking
• independent of social platforms
• robust enough to run for 6 months unattended

It's a personal trail log, not a social feed.

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Data sources

• Activity tracks: Strava API
• PCT centerline: PCTA Open Data (CC BY 4.0)
• Photos: Flickr
• Gear list: Grampacker

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License

Personal project. Feel free to take inspiration, but this is not intended as a drop-in product.