Mapping uphill routes at downhill ski areas

[ezekielf (Zeke Farwell)]

Over the last 10 years or so, uphill travel policies and designated uphill routes have become increasingly common at downhill ski areas in North America. Here are some examples:

Uphill Access Policy | Stowe

Uphill & Backcountry Access | Breckenridge Resort

UphillTravel-All3Maps-MERoute-30x24.pdf

Up Tracking - Kimberley Alpine Resort

I wonder if this is also common in Europe and elsewhere as well as how best to map this?
piste:type=skitour is used for uphill routes in backcountry terrain. Perhaps it would be appropriate for uphill routes inside ski area boundaries as well? Or perhaps not as these routes are frequently on the sides of well groomed trails (pistes) which are already mapped as piste:type=downhill. Perhaps some attribute tag that can be applied to the piste:type=downhill indicating that it is also designated as an uphill route?

[yvecai]

piste:type=skitour, patrolled=yes, operator=xxx ?

I guess if they are on the edge of a downhill piste, they deserve their own way at least to know on which side the preferred way is.

[Paolitosss]

A solution can be use a relation:type=piste to regroup the uphill route

[SimonPoole]

Skiing, from an organisational pov, tends to be quite different in Europe than in the states, so I wouldn’t really expect to see any special signage as a rule except if there are actual safety concerns at specific locations*.

Naturally FIS rules are applicable in any case https://assets.fis-ski.com/f/252177/49280306c8/fis-code-of-conduct-for-skiers-and-snowboarders-en.pdf for such situations, but there is little that can be done to enforce them on ski tourers and hikers (as you don’t need access to the lifts which is typically.what you are denied if you misbehave as a regular skier).

* nature protection zones etc. typically cannot be entered except on designated corridors/paths but that applies to everybody.

[Duja]

Just seen one on my recent trip to Austria, on the edge of a downhill piste. It’s not currently mapped though. It’s not even free, the entrance is supposed to be available for a small fee.

I agree with yvecai that tagging it with skitour is just fine, and they are probably best mapped with a separate way. Solution proposed by Paolitosss could work in theory, but seems unlikely that data consumers would interpret it correctly.

However, Strava heatmap for backcountry skiing shows that most downhill pistes in the area are used in the uphill direction as well (unless so many users selected the wrong sport, which is not beyond imagination). If that’s correct, the separate way solution is not very practical.

[Paolitosss]

I’ve already use relation to map cross country ski piste who runs on tracks or paths. It works well using OSMand and openskimap, I cant’t find any cons.

Relation: ‪Pista Marguareis‬ (‪20224908‬)

[Duja]

@Paolitosss

I’ve already use relation to map cross country ski piste who runs on tracks or paths. It works well using OSMand and openskimap, I cant’t find any cons.

That’s just fine, I agree. But in the use case we’re discussing here, your proposal suggests that the same set of ways (possibly in reverse order, if that matters) would have to be part of two route=piste relations, one piste:type=downhill, the other piste:type=skitour.

That could work I guess – it’s the same situation when e.g. the same paths are part of multiple hiking and cycling routes.

[ezekielf (Zeke Farwell)]

Using piste:type=skitour was also my first instinct and I have started to use it already. The description of this tag on the wiki gives me pause though as it describes out of bounds touring in the backcountry, not skinning up and skiing down groomed pistes on otherwise lift-accessed terrain. If the consensus is that piste:type=skitour just means any ascent route including in-bounds groomed ones, then we can update the wiki to clarify this, but I just wanted to raise the discussion first.

I am a bit hesitant about this because the character of an in-bounds uphill route is somewhat different from a backcountry touring route. In the backcountry, a piste:type=skitour stands alone, representing a well known ascent route (possibly varying a bit from year to year). The descent route is often not explicitly mapped as skiers choose their own way down nearby. A descent is generally only mapped when it is a significantly different route than the ascent. The uphill in-bounds routes I’m wondering about are on heavily used lift-accessed downhill pistes that are explicitly mapped. Unlike in the backcountry, these ascents are not stand alone routes. They are primarily lift-served downhill pistes that have secondarily been designated for uphill use.

A map rendering may want to display these things a bit differently. For example, maybe a faint dotted line works well for a standalone backcountry touring route, but for an in-bounds uphill route the same styling may be hard to see when rendered right next to (or on top of) the downhill piste line. So a renderer might want to choose a different style when the uphill route is on an in-bounds downhill piste (perhaps an offset solid line with a contrasting color). In order to do this, some distinction would be needed between in-bounds uphill routes and backcountry uphill routes. This is why I mentioned perhaps an attribute tag on the piste:type=downhill. Maybe something like piste:uphill_route=yes.

An advantage of the attribute approach over a separate piste:type=skitour is that it is useful information for the lift-served downhill skiers to be aware they may encounter uphill skiers on this particular trail. It is also useful to know that this particular ascent route is on a trail primarily for lift-served downhill skiing as opposed to a standalone backcountry tour route. If a piste:type=ski_tour is mapped as a route relation sharing the same underlying ways as a piste:type=downhill, a data consumer could theoretically determine this information without an explicit attribute tag but I don’t know if this would be straightforward or not.

[Hungerburg (Asa Hundert)]

A bit of historical chat about subject matter here User talk:Hungerburg - OpenStreetMap Wiki - when I started to use grooming to set them apart from back country, which seemed not a far stretch to me then and now. So should be in the Wiki documentation already?

PS: It is about signposted “skitours” (the Mutterer Alm link still worked.) - not about people just doing stupid things.

[yvecai]

Maybe this helps Backcountry / Skitour -- Survey, how do you map?

[ezekielf (Zeke Farwell)]

Thanks, I had forgotten about that thread. It almost seems like I answered my own question here:

@ezekielf

A groomed skitour ascent, managed, secured and patrolled by a resort

piste:type=skitour, piste:grooming=classic, operator=Resort Name, patrolled=yes

At the time I was imagining how I would tag a groomed, patrolled trail that is only for ski touring and is not used by lift-served downhill skiers at all. I don’t know if such a thing exists, but that’s the hypothetical I was picturing. I wasn’t thinking of a primarily lift-served downhill trail that also gets used as an uphill route some of the time. That feels like a bit of a different situation to me.

Here are some samples from a ski resort trail map. Notice how the uphill routes have a quite a distinct style setting them apart from the rest of the trails.

The resort operators want everyone to be aware that they may encounter uphill traffic on these highlighted trails, and that these are the only trails where uphill travel is allowed.

Mapping as a separate way

I mapped one of these uphill routes as a piste:type=skitour way running parallel to the piste:type=downhill it follows.

Here is how OpenSkiMap, OsmAnd, and OpenSnowMap display this data.

OpenSkiMap uses dashed lines for the skitour. Although they are visible here, the partially overlapping, parallel downhill lines prevent them from really standing out.

OsmAnd renders a thick dotted line for the skitour. Unfortunately, the dots are the same color (based on difficulty) as the parallel solid downhill line so they mostly blend into it. Some dots can be seen poking out from the side of the lines near the “Twice as Nice Woods” and “Intro” labels if you look closely.

OpenSnowMap also uses a dotted line for the skitour and it is mostly hidden here as well.

Mapping as a route relation

I mapped the other designated uphill route (from the resort above) as a piste:type=skitour route relation using piste:type=downhill ways as members.

And more rendering examples from the same three maps.

This time OpenSkiMap offsets the the skitour line from the downhill line so it stands out a bit more. I guess this is possible since the two are connected via the route relation.

This mapping method ends up much more visible in OsmAnd. The skitour dots are rendered on top of the solid downhill line but the dot color is changed so it contrasts with the line color. Again I assume the route relation enables this.

OpenSnowMap’s dotted line is completely hidden by the solid downhill line this time. There is an uphill skier icon next to the “Old Turnpike” label, though, so we can tell it is trying to show the skitour.

Overall it seems the results are a bit better with the route relation method. Not ideal in OpenSnowMap, but I imagine it could potentially do something similar to OsmAnd or OpenSkiMap.

Standalone ski tour examples

For comparison I also collected some render samples of standalone piste:type=skitour routes all by themselves in the backcountry.

These line styles all work well for this purpose, and are much more visually distinct here where they aren’t competing with a dense network of downhill piste lines. This is part of why I was wondering if data consumers might want to treat an uphill route within a resort a bit differently than one off by itself, and if some new tagging might be helpful for that. For now I’ll use the route relation method. Hopefully that encodes enough information.