I’ve surveyed and mapped the following hiking path as T5, and added the sac_scale=demanding_alpine_hiking tag. This path is taken by a few alpinists.
What is the best approach for mapping such a trail?
Should I map the route in detail based on the specific path I followed during my survey, or should I add only a few waypoints and leave the exact route for hikers to find themselves?
On the one hand, accurately mapping the route allows hikers to do the same route as I did and know that it will be a T5 hike.
On the other hand, one could say that it’s part of the T5 hike to explore and find the route. For example I walked 20m around a large boulder to avoid climbing it, but other routes would be possible. If I map it precisely, it could give the impression that it is the only or necessarily the correct route.
Are there any tracks on the ground? Is it signed? Is the route well known and used by multiple people (that aren’t just all part of the same group)?
If the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’, then it probably shouldn’t be mapped at all.
(I moved the topic into the switzerland category btw. since this is something the local community should decide)
Thanks @Woazboat for moving the post to the CH community.
There is a trail that is visible on the ground (Trampfelpfad) whenever there is grass or bushes and a few cairn indicating the route. Clearly there are not dozens of hikers per day, but there is enough information on the ground to know where is the trail most of the time.
At the same time, there are some large boulders that one can go around in different ways. In that concrete situation I was wondering if it’s better to just have a straight line or to show on the map that I took the decision to walk around them from one specific side.
I’ve seen evidence of some rope climbing (there are some hooks on the rocks) but I feel not experienced enough to assess the location and way it’s intended to be climbed.
I can therefore add the existence of some climbing possiblity as a fixme note on the route, would it be fine?
An option here would be to split the track both sides of where you’ve gone around the boulder, & add a Description to the detour “=Huge boulder. Track bypasses it to left or it could be climbed over. SAC level 6 climb involved” or something along those lines.
PS As you can probably tell, I’m not a climber, so SAC 6 is probably wrong, but you get the idea!
I don’t quite like the description tag for this case. Since in my opinion it is more about the missing climbing possibility. Since Glyphe doesn’t know exactly how and from where to where it is possibly to climb I added two nodes including a fixme.
I would have said you should map it the way you could do it. If there is another way, another mapper could add it. Nothing wrong with multiple paths in my opinion. And at some point it could be converted to an area
Yes, there are reports on this route, mainly focussing on the climbing part.
On the report linked above they provide a detailed description of the route and the climbing sections it contains. If this route is done avoiding the rock climbing, it has a T5 difficulty.
