Should keys like trail_visibility & sac_scale etc exist, given difficulties with verification / some interesting thoughts on trail_visibility

General talk Tagging general discussion
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Should we strive for a global or regional consensus for things like trail visibility & difficulty?

Yes.

People get lost trying to follow trails that aren’t easy to follow and people get hurt and die following trails that are too difficult for their skills, preparedness, or weather conditions.

Trail Visibility
As the previous thread indicated, a fine-grained deterministic 6-point scale might not be possible, but I believe that a global consensus is reachable on some large buckets:

  • The trail is so visible that it is easy to follow by novices/non-“hikers” that they can just plod along looking at their feet or chatting without wondering if they are still on “the trail” or not. Any crossing animal tracks wouldn’t confuse them because the main trail is so much more obvious.

    This is currently covered by excellent and good. A distinction between them might not be useful.

  • The trail requires periodic glances to identify where it goes. It is likely to be very obvious to anyone who knows it, has been on it before, or is an experienced hiker/mountain-biker. Novices may need to take a moment at crossing animal paths or changes in surface to determine which way the main path goes. A key distinction is that losing the path is possible for novices and there is some mental load of looking ahead for those not familiar with the path, especially in areas with many crisscrossing animal paths (e.g. grazing areas) or surfaces that don’t hold tread well (hard rock, sand, etc). Hunting for the next blaze or cairn (if available) may be needed to figure out where the path goes.

    This bucket might include trails tagged good or intermediate.

  • The trail isn’t immediately obvious or distinct from the surroundings. Even experienced hikers/mountain-bikers who don’t know the trail likely need to expend continuous watchfulness to evaluate where it goes. Crossing animal paths may be as distinct or more distinct than the path. There is a strong likelihood that novices would get lost.

    This is probably mostly falling under bad and horrible.

  • There is no visible path. A route crosses bare rock/sand/river-stone and the people are recommended to take a particular route across the area, but a particular treadway isn’t visible at all. Orienteering may be required if the non-visible segment is long.

These broad buckets focus on the effect of the conditions in terms of their likely outcome on people, which seems to be goal of most data consumers – provide an indication of applicability to various audiences and keep novices from inadvertently tackling paths that are likely to get them lost.

There will certainly be some regional variation based on trail construction practices, but “is a novice likely able to follow the path easily” shouldn’t be that subjective.

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