The definition and picture for “difficult_alpine_hiking” looks much more adequate than the current “demanding_alpine_hiking” (which is be perfectly suited for the western side of the trail). I’d change it myself, but apparently my recent experience and troubles there couldn’t be enough for that. Or could they be?
If you are a member of the CAI you should definitely be able to figure out which group within the CAI is responsible for the maintenance of that trail (given that the ridge is the boundary this could be GR Trentino or GR Lombardia), and how to contact them. In fact, you could raise this issue within the CAI if you think the person or persons behind CAI Salò are not managing those trails properly.
Given that you are a member of the CAI I’m surprised your first port of call is starting this thread here, but that may be because you weren’t aware of the history function of any mapped object.
Ask them. You could do that in the changeset which added the current version.
2 Likes
sorry if that wasn’t clear, I used to be a CAI member, I’m not anymore. That was just to say that I know the club from within, having been one of them. They are not authoritative as their name might suggest, or they shouldn’t be.
Whilst there are admittedly some great and honorable persons inside the CAI, it’s a wide group whose members are very heterogeneous. I’ve found rock climbing teachers doing courses at the base of a crag where rocks fell, and no student nor the teacher himself wore an helmet; I’ve seen people being there for the sake of boasting a badge.
Really I don’t think that the fact that some of their alpinists climbed that route should give them more authority than I, that I personally walked that rocks, do , on the public cartography.
I am curious to go there again next summer and see where the newly drawn line goes and how different it is from the previous one.
Thanks anyone for the feedback. I learnt several things in the process, such as
- a trail on OSM might actually not be a trail, so I should not plan my adventures based on it any longer.
- you can’t delete that trail on OSM it if that is the case.
- it is possible to communicate to people that did the edits/created the route, but
- whenever there is a disagreement, it’s probably going to be a bloodbath
2 Likes
@Superfebs If you use Locus and Andrompas, also use Elevate: Elevate - Hiking, Cycling, Sightseeing - openandromaps
that shows sac_hiking and trail_visibility.
I have never been there, but judging from the pictures, left side is almost for sure not alpine_hiking as you do not need hands to advance. The particular stretch you show actually looks more like mountain_hiking, but maybe the path has more exposed parts, not sure. Also the jump from hiking to demanding mountain hiking lower in the valley indicates there might be at least a portion that is mountain_hiking. I think it makes sense to only map difficult stretches of path with higher difficulty and the easier ones with lower difficulty, but I am not sure there is a consensus on that.
The right side on the picture still does not look like hands are necessary (so it would be demanding mountain_hiking) but I totally believe you there are stretches that are harder and require hands and probably is at least alpine_hiking. Since the trail is invisible though, ti is a question if you did not get lost a bit/if the track is just simply misplaced a bit. At the end on the opposite side down in tha valley, the map says there is a guidepost ( Node: 11218007312 | OpenStreetMap ) for this trail. That clearly indicates it should be in OSM, I think.
Strava is useful for proving a trail exists in reality. I think for a trail to be in OSM when there is nothing physical indicating it, it needs to exist as a shared mental fact, so there needs to be a not insignificant (=they should not all know each other) group of people who know of a trail there and use it or have used it. But with the guidepost here, it is quite clearly the case.
4 Likes
Yeah, that section I pictured is very walkable but after more than one hour of walking apparently randomly you can’t proceed any further.
The left path does also changes and in the topmost part does require a bit of scrambling and walking on snow, so I think that T5 might be adequate.
Anyway, funnily enough, I just chatted with a friend that is accidentally recently has been made responsible for OSM mapping for his CAI section. He just told me that there are national CAI directives that tells that alpine routes, not marked on the trail, should not be mapped on OSM!
He’s searching for an official document that I will publish as soon as he hopefully finds it.
About the guidepost, I did unfortunately walked the path from the west, and I wasn’t able to reach it. Certainly on the west valley there was no sign that headed there. All the posts were pointing at most at the “bivacco ceco baroni”.
Got the link.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/IT:CAI
quoting my friend:
“I percorsi escursionistici CAI devono essere obbligatoriamente classificati con la scala CAI (cai_scale), la scala sac_scale non è prevista. Inoltre deve essere indicato l’operatore che gestisce il percorso. E deve essere riportato anche il numero del percorso. In questo caso nella relazione mancano tutti questi dati che sono obbligatori, senza i quali il percorso non viene registrato sul catasto digitale della Rete Escursionistica Italiana. Ergo: questo non è un sentiero CAI.”
If it is just a early season snow (=not glacier, it will melt eventually), then I think it should not matter. Anyway, in that case, according to me, then just the topmost part should be mapped with a higher difficulty (so in practice dividing the current way into two).
2 Likes
Look here, Node: 30a (11128572586) | OpenStreetMap for an example, where the guidepost says nothing. I even found a faded blaze here Node: 11128579380 | OpenStreetMap
In my local area, Strava users not like you suggest, they go even more demanding paths.
I wanted to tell you, to contact CAI about that path. I did once complain to the local club in Austria about bad marking, and they said, they abandoned the trail and are actively working on getting it out of tourist maps.
PS: There is a long topic on pathless routes. Have a tag to denote fictional “pathless paths” that exist only for routing purposes? From my experience, sometimes I am better off by NOT following them too closely. After all, the “path” might be just a single persons take on the terrain, different from mine.
E.g. Longs | Strava
Running up class 5 (yds) terrain…
1 Like
I think that unless the trail stops existing on the ground, it should be maybe tagged with disused=yes but not just deleted only because some organization decided as long as it remains visible on the ground.
Don’t use disused=yes - this doesn’t fall back nicely. Any renderer/router that doesn’t parse the disused= tag will just see it as highway=footway (or whatever). Better to do something like disused:highway=footway.
4 Likes
Hm, and with namespaces like disused:higway=path (footway is never appropriate for hiking trails unless maybe they are completely on carpentered wood but even then…), it is general practice that if “disused:” is not understood by the consumer, “highway=path” is rendered? My thinking would be exactly opposite - as long as it is physically there and passable, it should be rendered even if “disused” is not used. Reading the wiki: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:disused%3Dyes it feels more like the quarry then shop example.
1 Like
Yes, paths may still remain for a long time unless they are fully overgrown or crucial safety features like bridges or cables were removed. I’d just update things like trail_visibility and trailblazed:visibility as appropriate. A disused: lifecycle prefix could be added to the route relation though.
If there had been a path visible on the ground, I would not have complained about bad marking 
Close by it took 1½ years for a path form being abandoned by the rambling club to getting completely lost, without a trace on the ground. (On a scree, for completeness.)
Some here may not be aware of the work done by the alpine clubs. The core competence seemingly openstreetmap procedure – But not the verifiability principle, of course. I am also amused by the fact, that people from the Netherlands tell people from Italy to learn Italian.
1 Like
The problem is, the guy who asked me not to touch that poly line is from CAI. Another friend of mine is from another CAI, and he told me that the first guy has no jurisdiction about the path NOT being it in the list of the CAI trails. So he and I are actually both private citizens editing a line and no one has more rights over the other, despite the claims of one part. The only thing I can add is that I recently surveyed that route with my legs and eyes, I am not sure about the counterpart. Considering the new route is different from the original I deleted, I am curious about that. I haven’t got a reply so far.
4 Likes
The user page makes it look like the official representative of the CAI Sezione di Salò. So this is an organised editing account? Would that give them extra OSM privileges?
I have invited them here from their latest changeset that did re-add the pathless route.
PS: On the comment you received, this is just adding insult to injury. No matter how this is translated to English. To repeat, I’d have prefixed the path with abandoned: That way the relation would still be fine.
PPS: In the best of All Worlds, I would have made it a highway=scramble
2 Likes
Cross-Reference (gh issue/pr about rendering extreme mountain paths in standard layer)
He just told me that there are national CAI directives that tells that alpine routes, not marked on the trail, should not be mapped on OSM!
He’s searching for an official document that I will publish as soon as he hopefully finds it.
this is due to OpenStreetMap rules, but there are edge cases (routes which are not well maintained, which were once marked but most signs are vanished now).
CAI Salò did comment on Changeset: 155205011 | OpenStreetMap - I copy here for convenience:
good morning,
the question is much simpler than it may be. Path 30 is used by expert mountaineers, and was opened to connect Val Adamè with Passo Val di Fumo. The project was carried out by volunteers with the help of the Lissone refuge manager. The trail is indicative (like most mountaineering trails, see the trail, final part, of Forcel Rosso), the reason is given by the fact that avalanches and landslides move the rocks with the trail markers. Therefore, it must be followed with the help of paper maps (kompass) and GPS. Furthermore, you must proceed by azimuth, identifying the best route. The trail indicates the route (which is not that difficult) but not the trampling. In fact, the trail is left in gray and is not classified precisely because of the phenomena of washing away and changes in the orography. The route was opened as a normal connecting route, but it is up to the hiker to be able to evaluate (based on their own experience) whether it is feasible or not. The proof is given by overcoming the gully that connects Bivacco Baroni with Bocchetta di Levade, which in some places presents third-grade difficulties. This is enough to make the unwary understand that one should not go further unless one has adequate mountaineering training. However, I would leave aside evaluations on the professionalism of the members of the Italian Alpine Club and the Società Alpinistica Tridentina who daily report and maintain over 8000 km of trails on Italian territory. All the volunteers of the CAI-SAT must be given the best compliments for the work done. No further communications will follow. Thank you. CAI Salò.
Is that in line with what a path in OpenStreetMap can stand for?
- Yes
- No
0
voters
To consider: No indication on the ground, UIAA III difficulties.
1 Like
T6 is the scale for trails that have at most II grade climbing according to the wiki. The route there is III grade. This should be enough to settle this.
1 Like