Please remove this addition. It turns out to wrong values on parking aisles, residential roads, … which are members of only one hiking route. At least it can be misunderstood to do so.
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There is also another way to map hiking routes: Node Networks - OpenStreetMap Wiki
(disclaimer) I’m not really involved in mapping like this because until now I’ve been repelled by the wall of texts explaining the concept.
This concept however describes well the use consisting of following a route from intersection to intersection. So maybe there is a possibility to add a particular sac_scale between 2 nodes ?
That would be a finer granularity than the whole route, but coarser than on every split ways that rebute some.
I wouldn’t like it much for the same reason mentionned earlier (max, average, roughly ?) but I’m always free to ignore them anyway. It’s a tentative to meet halfway.
Exemple: Relation: 13438447 | OpenStreetMap
The problem is that node networks as described don’t exist in some countries (FR & GB, for instance), and I’m unconvinced that the Swiss Hiking Network is truly a node network, just one which is well signposted. So I don’t see it as a universal approach by any means.
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If it is as specialised as it seems, yes, I agree.
overview can still pull this info from way members and show it for entire route, there is no need to map it manually
(especially as it is unclear what should be manually assigned to relation - maximum difficulty? average difficulty?)
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(especially as it is unclear what should be manually assigned to relation - maximum difficulty? average difficulty?)
it is not unclear at all, the maximum difficulty is what is of interest for a route. Never heard of average difficulty, it seems a paradox. For ways I agree to remove the sentence you removed
I can see how “maximum difficulty” makes sense for relatively short routes, e.g. from a valley to a summit. But I’m not sure about multi-day hiking or pilgrimage routes that could be hundreds of kilometres long - would it make sense to rate this kind of trail as difficult if there happens to be a single short difficult segment?
I wonder if for route relations we should encourage mappers to make use of “official” or “published” measures of difficulty where available, rather than relying on the mapper’s own estimation. E.g. in Spain a standardised rating called “MIDE” often appears on the information boards at the start of a route, and takes into account the length of the route among other factors (so would only really make sense on a relation, not a way). But I haven’t seen it used much on OSM. I realise that this would not be comparable across countries and is not available everywhere, but even so perhaps there is potential to make more use of them in OSM. Do we know any countries where this kind of thing is mapped systematically?
(If I understand correctly, sac_scale was originally derived from this kind of published information before getting repurposed as a generic worldwide indicator of difficulty).
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I can see how “maximum difficulty” makes sense for relatively short routes, e.g. from a valley to a summit. But I’m not sure about multi-day hiking or pilgrimage routes that could be hundreds of kilometres long - would it make sense to rate this kind of trail as difficult if there happens to be a single short difficult segment?
these are either divided into different stages (day tours) or it doesn’t make sense to give a difficulty (when they are long relations, hundreds of kilometers)
Do we know any countries where this kind of thing is mapped systematically?
in Italy we use the cai_scale from the club alpino italiano.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/cai_scale
and sac_scale as well (we use sac_scale on ways and cai_scale on relations)
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Just for reference, the SAC itself, much like its CAI cousin, use its Mountain hiking scale also on routes only (which in OSM are mapped as relations) - it is just on openstreetmap, where sac_scale (which is derived quite straightforwardly from the SAC mountain hiking scale) is not allowed on route relations.
Maybe back then, when the sac_scale tag was created, route relations were not available yet?
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Quite a few accounts on Hikr (example for the Klosterwappen AT-NO) will grade separate parts of a route with different values of the SAC Scale, so it’s not just OSM.