Here to what the SAC changed to its Mountain Hiking Scale in the meantime - Darum wurde die SAC-Wanderskala nach 20 Jahren ĂĽberarbeitet - an interview with one of the drafters then and now. There is a slideshow with pictures of the grades. The T5 one some may recognize, the T6 is new, deeplink. The main points: SAC Scale is not about risk or danger, it is about difficulty (technicality), exposure (mentality), wayfinding (orienteering) and falling hazards (did anybody say not about danger?)
Nicht relevant sind: die Länge der Route, die Abgeschiedenheit, die Höhenlage, die Häufigkeit der Begehung, die Ernsthaftigkeit (Länge der schwierigen Passagen etc.) und übrige Gefahren wie Wettersturz, Steinschlag, Lawinen und so weiter.
Edit: BTW, I don’t see the changes as dramatic as implied elsewhere on the forum. Definitely not enough of a reason to move away the sac_scale from the SAC Scale.
A few interesting passages from the author that don’t seem to always align with OSM interpretation of the scale:
Wichtig auch: Was landläufig unter Wandern und Bergwandern gemeint ist, spielt sich alles im Bereich T1 bis T3 ab. Routen ab T4, und erst recht jene um T5 und T6, erfordern in aller Regel Fähigkeiten, die ins Alpinistische reichen.
Wege werden immer von Abzweigung zu Abzweigung bewertet. Die höchste Schwierigkeit ist dafür entscheidend.
This is actually contentious. I mean, in the context of the SAC scale it refers to the whole route. For mapping, a route is a relation. Therefore, the sac_scale should only apply to relations, not to paths.
Maybe this would take away a part of the problem.
This is actually contentious. I mean, in the context of the SAC scale it refers to the whole route. For mapping, a route is a relation. Therefore, the sac_scale should only apply to relations, not to paths.
Maybe this would take away a part of the problem.
in the context of a database, it seems better to let people map as detailed as they want (on the highway level) and naturally if you are to put a scale on the route, the most extreme scale along the whole route would be it
To compare to climbing, which illustrates the point neatly - one wants to know that a certain multi-pitch route is of grade V. But one also wants a detailed topo, which explains the whole route, broken down into sections with their grades and descriptions.
I guess something like that would work for hiking paths, too. Not sure how that would practically be implemented.
Especially since, as you say, we are using a database. Many of these things should be easier to establish nowadays.
Isn’t this what’s already happening? Mappers tend to add detail over time, not remove it. So the first mapper might tag the whole 10 mile hike from the car park to the mountaintop as demanding_mountain_hiking. That’s not the average difficulty - it’s the difficulty of the most difficult section. It says: if you aren’t comfortable with demanding_mountain_hiking, you’re not going to be able to walk the entire length of this path. If the path forks somewhere, or if there’s a POI like a viewpoint or a hut where many people turn back, it makes sense to split the way and tag the segments individually. And as more mappers walk the path, eventually someone will split it into sections of different difficulty, and they’ll use their common sense to decide how many splits to do and how long the segments should be. Over time, in areas where many mappers are active, we end up with a more and more detailed map.
With that detailed map it’s still easy to derive a difficulty for the overall route by looking at the difficulty of its most difficult section. For example, when you plot the route in a hiking app, the warning message it shows you will be based on the most difficult section your route includes.
Yes, he said that, but not in the sentence you did quote. Nevertheless, we do not need to understand everything, some things may remain a mistery [sic]
I think though it only applies to the T1…T3 values, where there is a path or something very similar to such on the ground, and railings e.g. (T1) or assistive measures.
I translate, with machine help:
Also important: What is commonly referred to as hiking and mountain hiking takes place in the T1 to T3 range. Routes from T4 onwards, and especially those around T5 and T6, generally require skills that extend to mountaineering.
I do not see that going against the OSM sac_scale. After all, the OSM scale was badly translated from the Swiss scale of 20 years ago. (Somebody made it better than the SAC own translation though in the mean time.)
BTW: I fully understand why they dropped equipment requirements - people doing such “hikes” do not need advice on that – T6 or difficult_alpine_hiking is a serious hobby: Mountaineering without the gear, in other words: Grade 2 or 3 Scrambling – Repost of new T6 picture
I forgot one point: Somebody said: We must not introduce new highway key values. This is where we are today! Luckily for the mountain hikers, the soon following new highway key value generic path paved their way.
That reminds me of MTB mappers that split hiking trails in a dozen segments. I always wonder – do the stop every 20 or 50 m and discuss the grading? Don’t they just bike through? I see this much less on hiking trails and not to such detail.
Unfortunately, I did not find it easy at all when I was planning a 22km tour with a group. It was just a gut feeling that made me zoom at one ridge and find a very difficult (for the target audience) 5m section.
