Introduce Pathless / Alpine Path / Off-Path?

_MisterY · 2024-11-02T06:46:26.342Z

Minh_Nguyen:

But the path to a translation in English is not necessarily straightforward.

That’s the definition of pathless.

_MisterY · 2024-11-02T07:14:49.646Z

Hungerburg:

Mind you, that pathless is not in the mix. It simply is not mapped at all.

BTW, how are the routes, such as Grimming Südostgrat, marked then, if at all?

dieterdreist · 2024-11-02T11:31:15.000Z

Karrenweg (single track) is historically bound: Carry goods on the back of animals (mules, horses.) I count that as pedestrian.

This is perfect for animals and any kind of vehicular access, like bikes and motorbikes.

+1, I was thinking the same, Karrenweg implies the way is suitable for vehicles

Allroads · 2024-11-02T11:39:37.684Z

Roadbook is from point to point, when they go from the track/path then it is off_piste off_track, then always a C cap is mentioned the bearing and the length, when it is not a straight line it is C MOY moyen average bearing. The next point is drawn as a tulip, giving hint what to expect.

Could this be a relation with a role from point to point?

Pathless is this the same as off_piste, off_path, off_track?

Knowing that you must walk, ride, drive on a bearing.

I miss the bearing aspect in this kind off route.

See a roadbook lexicon how they express all kinds of situations.

SomeoneElse · 2024-11-02T12:26:47.375Z

Allroads:

The next point is drawn as a tulip, giving hint what to expect.

Er what? I’d suggest including a couple of examples, with links to the relevant areas in OSM, so that people can have a look.

Allroads · 2024-11-02T23:30:04.524Z

SomeoneElse:

Er what?

Roadbook, osm location, Bolivia, not much of these sandy roads are drawn in.
This is a dead end track now (64), this goes over in a off_piste, off_track route, a more dune vegatation section with a CAP C292 degree.

afbeelding1574×991 178 KB

To the next point is 0,44 kilometer then you must go CAP C14 degree.
Dashed line is off_piste off_track, this was made for single_tracked en double_tracked.

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Here osm location goes a off_piste, off_track (dashed) onto a ground sandy unclassified road. Because of the settlement.

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tulips are the drawn arrow and icons, middle table, visualisation of a roadbook.

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Josm visualisation
left second example
middle first example
right Orinoca, from that area come Morales former President of Bolivia.

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(The roadbook could be drawn in better, the mountain is not that high, etc.)

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The corosion and the water problems in that part of Bolovia.

To get a idea of how to navigate through a terrain with a roadbook.
I was asking myself, how should a off_piste relation look like in OSM.
And can we learn from this type of navigation.

Pathless and naming it or a other method.

ZeLonewolf · 2024-11-02T23:42:49.896Z

If there is truly a gap in the route, as in, you’re transiting over completely open terrain and everyone makes their own unique way across the terrain, then simply don’t map anything. Don’t just connect the dots. There’s nothing there, so there’s nothing there to map.

If there is anything at all that someone could follow, be it blazes, cairns, landmarks, whatever, then tag it as a path.

Don’t create geometry when there’s nothing there. Just don’t do it. Data consumers are perfectly capable of connecting two points together with a line. I assure you this is a simple algorithm.

Minh_Nguyen · 2024-11-03T07:57:15.976Z

ZeLonewolf:

Data consumers are perfectly capable of connecting two points together with a line. I assure you this is a simple algorithm.

The South Coast Route, mentioned earlier, doesn’t go in a straight line, because the coast doesn’t go in a straight line. The trails have been mapped as paths, but not straight paths – far from it.

This trail is marked, sort of. For example, this trailhead sign tells you to access the beach trail by going down the bluff onto the beach:

commons.wikimedia.org

File:Sign visitor walking beach access south beach campground c bubar march 05 2015 (17371926315).jpg

From there, I guess you’re expected to know where the beach ends and the ocean begins.

commons.wikimedia.org

File:South Beach - Olympic National Park - Washington State (9784061856).jpg

From left to right: the coastline and western boundary of the national park, the beach with a trail running through it, the bluff and eastern boundary of the national park, a trail marker sitting up atop the bluff, a parking lot for South Beach, woods, and U.S. Route 101.1920×1012 205 KB

Is it appropriate to map out a linear path, even though physically nothing is present apart from the beach itself? Can we think of it as a “centerline” of sorts, despite the shifting tides? Or is it more appropriate to connect a path to two ends of the beach area and expect routers to calculate an optimal path through the area? (Few if any routers can do that in practice. That’s why we also map footpaths through perfectly well-built pedestrian plazas and such.)

Fortunately, this beach is not as demanding as some of the alpine trails that have come up in these discussions, at least when the tide is out. Still, you’ll want to mind the beach logs:

commons.wikimedia.org

File:South Beach - Olympic National Park - Washington State (9783847751).jpg

supsup · 2024-11-03T10:16:32.389Z

ZeLonewolf:

Are we saying that we shouldn’t tag =path for the bit where the trail goes over the rock?

That seems so outrageously pedantic, that I don’t even know where to begin to respond. highway=path + surface=bare_rock or whatever. A path is a place where people walk over, let’s not make things complicated.

The route goes over a class 4 climb? highway=path. After all, you’re putting your feet on the ground, right?

pathless? Please make it stop.

I am not sure if you are joking or not. Nobody is suggesting, I think, to map a few meters of invisible path as pathless. However, there are a lt of ways in OSM that are not really visible on the ground and yet they are mapped. Opposing moving them to some new tag apart from highway=path in practice means keeping them, as there is strong resistance to having them removed. And pretty much everyone agrees (seems to me) that using highway=path for stuff where you more climb than walk is at least suboptimal, as it then gets rendered in general-use maps leading to all kinds of trouble.

ZeLonewolf · 2024-11-03T12:16:39.188Z

I am very serious.

Any pedestrian routing that you can follow in the world, up to but not including climbing routes, is a valid feature to tag as highway=path (if no other competing tag applies) as evidenced by real-world usage.

That includes:

Paths that are hard to follow
Paths that are overgrown
Paths that are not really visible on the ground
Paths that are really really hard to see
Paths that require following other features in nature
Paths that are hard to traverse
Paths that are dangerous
Paths where you have to use your hands

That excludes:

Places where there is absolutely, positively no path at all

I note that:

supsup:

it then gets rendered in general-use maps

Is a bad (in my opinion) reason for removing something from highway=path. That is better accomplished by properly tagging other attributes on the path and letting the cartographer decide whether or not it should appear on the map. Our job as mappers is to do proper data entry to describe the feature in front of us, not to second-guess mapmakers or insert our judgement about the danger or suitability of a path.

_MisterY · 2024-11-03T13:19:41.458Z

ZeLonewolf:

There’s nothing there, so there’s nothing there to map.

Please don’t use that argument. There is nothing between countries or counties, either, yet there is tons of borders on the map. There is nothing on a sea but waves yet there are ferry routes, and so on.

What is being drawn on a map in this case is a safe, ordinary, or optimal passage way through an area.
As shown in one of the threads, instead of looking for a way to pass up the mountain in a fog and among the ridges, the map shows where it is safe to do so. Especially if there are cairns or other markers. But even more importantly when there aren’t (grassy area, desert, volatile area, not frequently used, etc.).

_MisterY · 2024-11-03T13:25:55.208Z

You seem to be the perfect candidate to ask - why not apply the same to roads? Two to three additional tags would be more than sufficient to express the differences between different types.

Edit: Aren’t roads just another path, with specific characteristics?

ZeLonewolf · 2024-11-03T15:30:49.671Z

I am also opposed to the roadless tag on the same grounds.

SomeoneElse · 2024-11-03T15:44:34.243Z

ZeLonewolf:

letting the cartographer decide

Part of the reason why we are here is because at least some of those cartographers are either crap or very time-poor, and don’t even know that there is a decision to be made.

OSM mappers are also sometimes crap and lazy** and sometimes don’t use other tags.

** not anyone reading this, obviously!

supsup · 2024-11-03T15:54:32.655Z

which i

ZeLonewolf:

I am also opposed to the roadless tag on the same grounds.

That is fundamentally different though. By the nature of cars, you cannot have roadless road, as cars leave tracks. You can have pathless paths because while people do leave tracks too, those can be very faint or can be very quickly erased (as everything, this has exceptions, like Ninety Mile Beach, New Zealand - Wikipedia ) (and on some surfaces that people can walk on but cars cannot, like rocks, even people leave no trace).

However, you apply the reasoning that all paths should be distinguished by secondary characteristics. But you do not want to apply the same reasoning to roads. At least to me, an avid car-hater, all roads are kind of the same:-). Yet we have 21 or so primary tags for them. That is what @_MisterY was aluding to, I think.

_MisterY · 2024-11-03T16:13:39.124Z

ZeLonewolf:

I am also opposed to the roadless tag on the same grounds.

Should we call it off-path, then?

supsup:

Yet we have 21 or so primary tags for them.

One road tag with surface and width would suffice for most cases, I believe.

ZeLonewolf · 2024-11-03T17:22:59.895Z

Can you explain (in fairly simple terms) what a “pathless path” is?

Hungerburg · 2024-11-03T17:30:39.516Z

ZeLonewolf:

Places where there is absolutely, positively no path at all

By statements of both the person that deleted a path (forum post) and the person that remapped the path (in CS comment) there is nothing on the ground where the openstreetmap data derived maps shows Sentiero 30 that meets common criteria of a path. Perhaps even by the criteria of yours, but I am not certain. Expert mountaineers find their way through the area by using a map and judging azimuth, the CS comment says.

In the CAI statement I was wondering about the reference to kompass. I thought it was about a compass, the device? Now I think it is about Kompass, a map producer (from my home town, btw.) They actually show Sentiero 30 on their map there as a marked trail. The geometry though off by a lot.

Perhaps it is time to add one more good reason: Paths that are on a map?

Hungerburg · 2024-11-03T17:33:03.053Z

supsup:

ZeLonewolf:

I am also opposed to the roadless tag on the same grounds.

That is fundamentally different though.

There was a post above about “pistes” in Bolivia. Introduce Pathless? - #60 by Allroads - I found that very interesting and not off-topic, and I like the off-piste, off-track terms.

ZeLonewolf:

Can you explain (in fairly simple terms) what a “pathless path” is?

Perhaps the best translation for German term “weglos” (pathless word by word) off-path then?

_MisterY · 2024-11-03T17:45:38.393Z

ZeLonewolf:

Can you explain (in fairly simple terms) what a “pathless path” is?

I know it is an oxymoron (btw, I already asked what the best term for it is, in the first post) and, therefore, your question sounds like asking to describe a hole. A hole is usually described by describing what is missing, no the hole itself. Which may or may not be the right thing to do.

I would say that, based on the experience on OSM (Weglose 'Wege' im Hochschwab), a path is a way that is clearly visible on the ground, or is known to a (particular?) group of people, is found elsewhere on the maps, or whatever other arbitrary reason one may have. A “pathless path” is a way that does not fall into those categories, yet serves exactly the same purpose. Hence the need for a proper way. In the legend from a paper map, posted by Hungerburg, it would perhaps best be described by Traces.
Truly “Weglose Gelände”, or pathless areas, likely do not need a line.

The lack of visible path is caused by the characteristics of the terrain (rock or hard mountain grass) and the (small) number of people who pass through it, possibly choosing a way that is close by, such as walking across a grass field. However, just adding a “pathless path” across the field shows that there is a route there. And it is not just a relation linking a starting and ending point, because it shows that one should follow a certain trajectory, since going a different way would be way more difficult and dangerous, as described in Alpinist routes marked as footpaths.
It would describe areas and ways such as Weglose 'Wege' im Hochschwab - #16 by _MisterY
And one possible purpose would be to find ways through Weglose 'Wege' im Hochschwab - #13 by _MisterY.

Edit: The purpose is two-fold. 1) To make it clear to people who expect to find a path there, that there is no such thing. 2) To make it clear to people who expect to find dangerous terrain there, that there is a possible way through.