Some relevant comments from Tag trail_visibility: Proposed Improvements for this Descriptive Tag
I started a discussion on this topic a week ago on the #trails channel on OSM slack, the general idea of these “pathless paths” either not existing or being a node_network has been unanimous. I’ll include some of my thoughts from there as well.
You can join this slack domain here https://slack.openstreetmap.us
It’s worth pointing out that trail_visibility=no as originally intended was probably meant to be used for paths that had some markers on them, not just for trails that don’t have any visibility. That seems like a case where the shift in meaning of the key has led to unintended consequences. IMO those should be redone as node_networks with minimal key nodes vs “paths”.
I’m personally against creating paths out of random off-trail GPX recordings. A lot of times there might be a key section to an off-trail route, but the rest is pretty open to personal route finding and can change based on snow levels, etc. Having them there as a path just promotes the creation of more informal trails/erosion and people staring at their phone instead of reading terrain. Probably around half my backpacking is pathless and markerless, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to create an OSM path out of the routes I’ve taken even if they worked well. I’ve deleted a few paths that were pathless and markerless (and happened to have poor routefinding as well) that I’ve come across.
In regards to the principle of reproducibility there’s a big difference between seeing a possible route, and seeing a trail which has been caused by repeated traffic over the same location - that’s the “ground truth” where I would draw the line at making something an informal path vs node network of loosely spread out markers.
I can easily see this getting out of hand - if people create node networks for every possible navigable path in the backcountry (like how some people create huge cairns to regularly mark a strong flowing outlet to a lake in a remote backcountry basin) the map becomes a cluttered mess of people “finding” routes that have been used for many decades in a fairly similar fashion.
IMO most off trail passes in the Sierra only need a top, a small minority need a bottom… but where is the bottom? it’s hiking up from a lake shore or something, or would that be the nearest trail, or would it be a final push to the ridge where things are steepest and it’s most critical to be “on route”? I would put the passes that need a middle node on one hand, but I’m also experienced at routefinding and others might want a node every couple hundred of feet.
For informal routes I’d be wary of marking cairns (there’s some XC cuts, like Simpson Meadow to East Pinnacles I’ve done three times, differently, none terrible, and encountered a few cairns each time lol) - I feel like there could be a good mentality of putting a few extra nodes on a route with a description field (after this pond turn right to stay on Class 2, don’t go down the grassy ramp for Class 4) but leave someone getting from the top of the pass to that midway point on their own - they can pinball from side to side looking for easier drops on shelves, or drop down more directly if they’re comfortable with simple unexposed climbing
I destroy hundreds of (non-digital) cairns a year and make less than 5. It has to be one weak area of an otherwise strong abandoned trail, or something informal where missing that one non-intuitive spot is a genuine issue of safety. Finger Col ledge being the only Class 2 option out of a Class 4 area felt fair to me (though I knocked down random branching ones below it I built up the existing cairn by the ledge) or the two Class 3 options out of Class 4 drops on Valor Pass I chose to leave the cairns undisturbed as I didn’t encounter any for what up to that point is “walk up, nearly anywhere, from nearly anywhere on the shore of this lake”. There could literally be hundreds of specific routes for the same off trail pass.
While this isn’t what I would put up for a public pathless_route, but it illustrates the node network idea (I took a screenshot of personal waypoints to share with a local). I’d drop some of them, and clarify others for public use, but this feels much more “XC” than having a path rendered.
