I’ve spent the last few years exploring Northern Thailand on an off-road motorcycle, adding hundreds of kilometers of new trails to maps. Sharing my trip reports has inspired many to explore these trails and discover new ones, earning praise from the community.
I’ve also added many new trails visible from the Strava Heatmap, some of which are regular routes for hikers, trail runners, and mountain bikers. Some have told me the improved base maps helped them avoid getting lost, and some even used them for rescues.
However, after surveying the different outdoor communities, I’ve only received a few concerns from a couple individuals in my own community:
According to them, new visible trails will lead to:
Increased usage and trails closure (e.g., noise/damage causing village officials or farmers to close trails)
Unskilled/unprepared users having accidents/breakdowns that require rescue
Tourists skipping guides
Secret places being discovered
This has made me reflect on a common issue.
Should every trail be mapped? Should some areas remain secret, free from map users? Am I doing more harm than good by exploring and mapping these trails?
Bit longer: I absolutely understand your troubles and thus my answer would be: As long as it’s not yet mapped it’s always up to the surveyor to decide which trail to map and which to omit.
Once a trail has been mapped I (currently) strongly favour keeping it for as long as it exists OTG.
Each trail should be mapped carefully and all neccessary information should be added so each user can make their own informed decision. The mapper is in no way responsible for reckless and otherwise stupid and bad behavior of other humans.
I don’t see any issues with the trails my friends and I have personally surveyed. However, I can’t vouch for those added from public traces (OSM, Strava). Should I tag these as highway=road, as recommended here, until someone surveys them and adds more details? This way, they remain accessible to surveyors but aren’t visible to end-users until further decision is made.
For trails that are private, they should be appropriately tagged (and signed!). Data consumers should not be encouraging people to travel on access=no paths. Sometimes access is allowed but might be withdrawn if too many people start using the path. I’m not convinced this is a real problem. If a path with access allowed is a better route, I expect people would start using it regardless of if its mapped.
You could argue an area being mapped in OSM will increase the number of people visiting the area which locals might not like. I’m sceptical if this is happening, but would respond with the question “is it immoral to publish a guide book to Amsterdam?” After all, they are trying to reduce the impact of tourism.
I don’t see this as something mapping new trails causes. If users are going out unprepared they will run into problems on mapped or unmapped trails. Mapping more trails can help with orientation to make it easier for them to know where they are, and as you’ve commented, it can help with rescues. If someone is calling for help saying they’re on a path beside a river you want to have that path mapped.
Do you mean tourists skipping guides and being unprepared? I think that’s the same as above. If the concern is about employment of guides, knowing that a path exists is no substitute for a guide. All OSM tells you is there is a path here with some access and surface attributes. It won’t tell you this is a beautiful path that is interesting to walk along.
I am sympathetic to this argument for sensitive cultural sites. I don’t think it applies to paths. If there are sensitive cultural artefacts there it’s not going to reveal where they are - just where a path is.
None of this means that any mapper is obliged to map all trails. You might decide to not map private trails but you can’t stop someone else who wants to.