No - I don’t think that they are particularly correlated. None of my examples above are really “scrambles” - all are across open moorland.
I’m sure there are “scrambles that are pathless” (perhaps the final bit to a summit, where the best way to go varies by season). but there are also scrambles that are extremely well documented as “the best way to go”, but aren’t really paths in the sense that a crap interpreter of OSM data who is creating a “general purpose” map (not a hiking map) would expect.
To be honest, I tend to think that the whole “pathless” discussion is a bit of a diversion from the key problems with path as a tag - it has a ludicrously wide range that requires subtags to interpret sensibly and it even misuses some of those subtags so that you can’t tag legal access properly.
Edit 2: Just a remark - on the paper maps, a path/route does not change type every 20 meters but remains fairly constant for the whole “section”, i.e. between two junctions with other paths. Just like roads.
No, scrambles can be visible. There can be paint marks on the rock, cairns (stacks of stones), and even signs sometimes. Also, the lichen and such can be worn off the rock indicating where the route is.
Are you saying that highway=path in Thailand is even more meaningless than elsewhere because it does not even guarantee an able bodied person can traverse it? It more sounds like most trails there are pathless. However, it sounds like squaring a circle. If trails randomly appear and disapper, mapping them reliably sounds kind of impossible.
BTW: I found out where the term pathless comes from: from trail_visibility.
Often these are poorly marked on the ground and depending on the terrain and level of usage, there may or may not be much evidence of use on the ground. Nevertheless the legal right of way exists, and for countryside walking in the UK it’s necessary that they’re shown on maps and available for routers.
Well, if there is a precise route, and if the terrain is free of obstacles (bushes, rockslides, impassable barriers), then I can see why it would be useful to keep highway=path in this case. It is a bit like highway=track tracktype=grade5.
What happens generally where I live, when country paths become invisible because they are not used, they also become impassable. And a map that shows impossible routes is much less useful than an incomplete map. In fact, all maps are incomplete to some extent, and it is generally not a severe problem.
I’d add to that I was glad to stumble upon OSM a long while ago because I was fed up with paper maps showing overgrown path.
By now OSM is old enough to have the very same issue.
One idea would be to introduce a new key highway=pathless for paths that do not have a continuous track layout on the ground (i.e. a clear track that can be physically distinguished from the surroundings, whether the surface is different or it is morphologically levelled).
This tag may encounter paths that have only blazes/markers or cairns, or that have no continuous track on the ground (e.g. only partial traces and tracks visible), or there is nothing on the ground at all. I think it can be pretty good distinguished with highway=path, which have a continuous track layout.
By definition, this tag can only have a trail_visibility key of bad or even worse.
Another very big problem are these high mountain paths, which are even technically wrong, because they are not covered by the SAC scale and we can’t speak of hiking: The SAC hiking scale doesn’t cover climbing above UIAA II and glaciers, where you need additional mountain equipment (e.g. ropes). So the T6 or T4 path to Mt. Everest, Manaslu or Mont Blanc is bullshit. IMHO a good solution would be to invent highway=alpine_tour for routes not covered by the SAC hiking scale.
I would just like to point out that while I think it should not be highway=path in ideal world, such a use is now compatible with current highway=path, as that says that it must not be something that cars can legally use and that it must be traversable by people. Both conditions are met by this.
Though I wonder if it is technically illegal to drive up Manaslu beside being impossible.
As a reply to Discussion about deleting the highway samples page - #23 by supsup, I’d add that something like the term “pathless route” makes sense for such cases. It is a route between two points, between which there is no path or any other route markings (traces).
Still requires a better name.
You nail it: I know this from OSM notes in my area. People passing by on their hikes in places where their OSM based maps show a branching path, but nothing on the ground.
Eventually, somebody writes “Around here goes off a mountaineering route from a guide book”, eventually somebody writes “I have seen somebody walking there” (perhaps appealing to the language from the bus-stop documentation in OSM?)
Now just looked at two that I remember, both notes and paths gone.
PS: These routes/ways/ideal paths the notes are about have much less on the ground than the one up Mount Everest, which is in fact a fixed-rope climb – Been there (the routes in the Alps, not the Himalaya, knowing nothing about Manaslu.)
PPS: I somehow wrote that in reply to a post by @yvecai – Yes, I think, there is a lot of truth to it.
It is very hard to tell when a path is abandoned. I feel reminded of railway=abandoned - there still is the dam where it runs, for a railway that is good enough to be a railway? For a path, that certainly seems sufficient to keep it alive, even where trees grown in the midst of it and no traces around? Just pull on the trail_visibility lever.
Taking a step back, I wonder what is our primary purpose in mapping these things? Is it to show people where they can/should go, or to record the presence of something on the ground? Most of the time we map *ways, this is a difference without a distinction. But whenever mappers start rulebooking about access keys or setting strict physical criteria for paths, I wonder if we’ve lost sight of the original purpose of putting navigable ways on a map – for people to find their way. Abandoned rail mappers must be looking on with anticipation as we give them reasons to interpret their traces of embankments as railways.
