RFC: hiking_technique key (or a better name!) to describe movement on paths by hikers

[erutan]

@Hungerburg

I hope one day we can get by without so many references to SAC scale.

Same, it’s useful now because it’s in use in OSM and realistically it would need to port over to this.

@Hungerburg

The scene in the photo above looks T4 to me, Ouch!

@erutan

This was a section of trail in Banff that was T3 and I think could be considered borderline scrambling. It looked sort of T4 from afar but ended up being more of an uneven staircase.

It’s a fairly popular trail in a national park and that ~2-3m bit is the crux. In YDS it’d be Class 2, which is how I think of T3. The rest of the trail was simpler with 1-2 short sections of larger talus that’d be more clearly hands_for_balance (though I was able to do them in a surefooted_hiking manner,) and the rest more pure walking.

I don’t have any personal experience with trails or routes rated by SAC or BMC though.

A move further up definitely looks more T3. The fact it’s a 13mm lens also probably makes it seem more vertical than it was in reality.

Footholds were much stronger and simpler than they looked from afar - I was thinking my partner would take a nice YDS 3 photo, and it ended up being more YDS 2 when I got closer and then did it. I would say it’s at the upper end of that, or possibly the very lower end of T4 / YDS 3 which is why I brought it up as an example. I’m sure some people hold onto the rock with their hands.

I think having a node as obstacle or hazard would make more sense than creating a tiny segment of a higher rating.

@Hungerburg

As for the hands-on grade, that comes ambivalent - this will lead to debate – This summer I went a path hands-free that was graded T4. I made some of it, my moves may have looked comical at times, but I wasn’t progressing quick enough to keep projected pace for the last bus, so I had to use hands in the end.

I’m thinking of bumping use_of_hands down to hands_for_balance which will map it very closely to T3 (which would help get this scale adopted). Short mantles are something that bug me - they are technically T4 / YDS 3 but they’re not really “scrambling” or “simple climbing” so I tried to fit them in there - by their nature they’re short enough they should probably be a node and not a way. They’re not quite a “hazard” so perhaps we also need a node called “obstacles” (or just keep in mind that hazards can be used loosely).

update: I did RFC: hiking_technique key (or a better name!) to describe movement on paths by hikers - #25 by erutan

My partner regularly uses her hands where I don’t, she’s shorter so has less reach and is also more risk averse. If something is wet I’ll sometimes treat T2 like it’s T3, T3 like it’s T4 etc. I think providing multiple examples will help show terrain. I do like how T3 isn’t “you personally had to use your hands” but more “it’s reasonable that someone would”. I’m sure there will still be some disagreement, but hopefully less than there is in the current SAC regime. I personally think it’s fun to do challenges like you did, but hopefully most people capable of doing so can think about it and still realize that even though they can do T4 without using their hands to climb or T3 without using them for balance that the terrain shouldn’t be rated around their outlier experience.

Walking while using your hands for balance still fits into the foot_scale quite nicely I think, more so than trying to fit in short mantles - then we’re just left with scramble as the here be dragons bit.

@Hungerburg

Yet, being noble Gentlemen they could not use hands – perhaps too animal like? So some locals spent time to find passages that made the summit a walk-up.

That’s amusing - there are trails in the western US that take unnecessarily convoluted routes because they had to work for laden stock trains of mules and horses.