User:Oratzes

Hi,

I am a wikipedia editor. Started using wikipedia early on, but only became and active editor in 2021. I am still learning how to use wikipedia and its features and am thankful for any help or recommendations coming my way.

Right now I am focusing on California Mountain Passes. In May & June 2021 I personally traveled to most (all but one accessible by road) of the passes listed on Wikipedia to visit and enjoy a wonderful road trip spanning almost 5,000 miles inside of California. It became clear early in the planning process of the trip that many passes were missing on Wikipedia. So I started looking for sources and places that point to the missing passes. The biggest source so far has been the USGS GNIS database that as of June 2021 lists 693 gaps (the category of mountain passes) for all of California - the vast majority not near roads, but on trails or in the middle of the wild. I have created exports of the wikipedia and USGS GNIS data and setup my GPS to alert me whenever I get near one. Whenever I plan road trips I look for new and existing passes to stop, photograph and update/add to wikipedia.

On 28-6-21 I added 12 new California Passes with another 25 we have look-up and visited this year so far to be added.

On 29-6-21 I added the remaining of the new passes that we have visited this year so far. There are now well over 100 passes listed for California. Search indexes like Google are already picking up the new data. I have already been browsing California roads for more passes and are starting to create the lists to enter and visit.

As I am getting help from others I have also setup a meetup group dedicated to California Mountain Passes. I am also sharing the routes we have taken to visit the passes as well as have setup short videos of the journeys and the stops it took to get to all of them on relieve.

Hope some of you feel inspired to add something new to Wikipedia as well. We all can do our part.