page_title: Trail blazing
section_title: Carvings
hierarchical_section_title: Trail blazing / Types of signage / Carvings
caption_attribution_description: Waymarker at Southern Upland Way
context_page_description: Trail blazing or way marking is the practice of marking paths in outdoor recreational areas with signs or markings that follow each other at certain, though not necessarily exactly defined, distances and mark the direction of the trail.
  A blaze in the beginning meant "a mark made on a tree by slashing the bark". Originally a waymark was "any conspicuous object which serves as a guide to travellers; a landmark".
  There are several ways of marking trails: paint, carvings, affixed markers, posts, flagging, cairns, and crosses, with paint being the most widely used.
context_section_description: in North America, Australia and New Zealand, there are trails blazed by cuts made in bark by axe or knife, usually the former.  Most often these are informal routes made by loggers or hunters, or trails descended from those routes. Originally a tree would be blazed by hatchet chops (still the dictionary definition) but today other methods have become more common, with environmental and aesthetic concerns sometimes playing a part in the choice of blazing method. Other navigational aids, such as cairns, are used where blazes are unsuitable.
  In 1902 the miners of Idaho created and marked the Three Blaze "shortcut" Trail with a series of three distinctive blazes cut on the trees, usually with an axe, to define the specific route to the Thunder Mountain Mines of Central Idaho.
caption: Carved marker – wooden marker using a stylized thistle to mark the Southern Upland Way, Scotland
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