Talk:Hiking

Merge

Hiking and Walking Routes are so tightly related that they somehow should be consolidated. It needs to be clear which tags go where for example, and that is probably best done on one page. The Italian version of this page seems to be on the right track. --Dittaeva 00:51, 8 October 2011 (BST)

+1 sletuffe 19:18, 13 October 2011 (BST)

-1 now ;-) The page Walking Routes is/became too complexe and big, Hiking however is a simpler guide to hiking related tags sletuffe 13:51, 10 July 2012 (BST)

Merge with Walking Routes?

Somebody recently created Walking Routes page. Should this page be merged there (or vice versa) ? If not, then what exactly is the different purpose/scope of the two pages? -- Harry Wood 00:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Walking Routes is about tagging marked routes, and this page seems about tagging footpaths used for hiking. There's a big difference between those two... I guess the structure can be improved but as I see it, these two are different enough to get their own page. --Eimai 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

agreed. Hiking is more general than walking routes, however a link from here to there whould be great Sletuffe 13:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

+1 vibrog 19:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I support this. We already have too many Wikipages for the same topic. I know of 5 pages and the versions in English and German are not translations but completely independant: 2 about hiking routes in english, 1 in German, 1 about hiking maps in English, 1 in German. --Nop 11:18, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah we need to consolidate, I guess not necessarily by reducing the number of wiki pages, but at least by defining what information goes on what page and cross linking better. For now I'll remove the merge proposal now, and add a bunch of links which hopefully will be enough to highlight the problem -- Harry Wood 13:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed move to 'Walking and hiking'

Can I suggest that we change this title to 'Walking and hiking' and merge the two categories for 'hiking' and 'walking' into one at the same time. I would also suggest that Walking Routes is renamed as 'WikiProject walking and hiking'. As such this article would describe how to tag anything on the subjects and the related WikiProject article would be the place for mappers to organise how to collect this information all around the world. This arrangement would be consistent with articles titles for various other subject areas. PeterIto 05:54, 7 July 2012 (BST)

As long as something is done to improve these pages, I'm happy. --Guttorm Flatabø 10:38, 7 July 2012 (BST)

Definitely. I am planning to do a similar job to the one I did to Highways. In other words, a bit is a summary of everything that could be associated with walking and hiking. Starting with highway=path etc, but also mentioning in passing everything from stepping stones and stiles to camp-sites, hostels and viewpoints. A lot of that it is actually there, but personally I would prefer a prose format to a table. I would start with a section about how one can tag the actual route, its surface, naming if is is lit and barriers. Then a section for amenities associated or relevant to the route including benches, bathing places, information boards, shops and camp-sites. Finally a section on geological and natural features of relevance to the route, including peaks, passes and nearby lakes. In addition one would need a section focused on urban walking, and how to tag steps, ramps, enclosed pedestrians alleyways and indoor routes. Also.. (the list goes on), something about legal access rights to use paths (right of way, permissive etc). PeterIto 11:29, 7 July 2012 (BST)

I have no problem with creating a new page such as 'Walking' or 'Urban walking'. But I earnestly recommend to keep this site 'hiking'. The subject here is hiking, as long walks, especially in the country or wilderness. Many tags are only found in the countryside. This page already exists in six languages. It is used as a quick reference for hikers. --Rudolf 13:27, 10 July 2012 (BST)

+1 sletuffe 13:50, 10 July 2012 (BST)

I would also prefere the prose format instead of a table for the Hiking page, and this table beeing moved to something like Hiking/Hiking related tags. I'm unsure however about the merging of urban walking and mountain hiking. sletuffe 14:42, 10 July 2012 (BST)

Fine. Thanks for responding and there is a clear view being expressed here to keep hiking separate from urban walking and keep the scope of this article as it is unless anyone disagrees and has a good case! A few associated questions though:

• Would it make sense to move Walking Routes to 'WikiProject hiking' to make it clear that the it is about organise the collection of the hiking content from around the world and fits with this tagging article?
• Should we merge Trails into this article? I left a comment back in December about a merge, and no one has objected yet. Shall I get on with it?

-- PeterIto 14:22, 10 July 2012 (BST)

IMHO Routes are only a subset of what hiking is, and Walking Routes is only about routes, not hiking as a whole. Therefore, if you want to make the word "hiking" appear, then I'd suggest : WikiProject of walking and hiking Routes (or similar). But, since I'm unsure about the organisation you are willing to create (what is the "WikiProject"'s goal ?) I'd abstain from expressing an opinion until I know what you are after. sletuffe 14:34, 10 July 2012 (BST)

It's a good idea to include the information about 'Tagging walking and hiking Route Networks' in Hiking, but not the summary of many countries. This is already done in DE:Hiking and IT:Hiking. I'm also unsure about 'WikiProject hiking'. --Rudolf 16:02, 10 July 2012 (BST)

WikiProjects are in general mapping projects which are an attempt to pull together enough people to achieve some goal in an organised way, either for a topic area or for a territory. They contain details of who is mapping stuff where rather than providing information about how to tag stuff. PeterIto 17:08, 10 July 2012 (BST)

If you look at the Walking Routes article contents, it is mainly a list of places where people are mapping walking routes. There is also some stuff about tagging walking routes on that page which would be integrated into this one. PeterIto 17:46, 10 July 2012 (BST)

Redirects

Should really key and tag pages related to hiking (route=foot, etc) redirect to this page? Wouldn't it be better if each tag had some sort of independent description in addition to this page? --Skippern 00:11, 30 August 2012 (BST)

Simplified one-node bridge/tunnel solution for ways over small streams

Plese see Talk:Key:bridge#Simple_one-node_brunnels_for_way_over_waterway for the idea and rationale. RicoZ (talk) 13:55, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Alpinistic Routes

Hi, I'm quite new here. I'm a hiker/alpinist. What I would find very useful is being able to put in/ get out alpinistic routes with no trail. In impervious terrain it is very useful to know where you can pass. But it's not very convincing tagging it "highway:path / trail_visibility:no". As difficulty keys could be used "Difficulty_hiking:T1...T6", "Difficulty_climbing:I...VIII", "difficulty_alpinism:F,PD-,PD,PD+...ED+" --Boscolindo ‎07:20, 18 March 2014

IMHO your tagging with "trail_visibility=no" is correct for hiking routes. This page don't include climbing. How do you map a vertical climbing route? You will see only some dots in OSM. (Please use your signature in future postings). --Rudolf (talk) 21:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I feel that tagging "invisible" path is something that need discuss among other mappers and with broader audience since I fear that if we allow invisible path/trail (alpinist or skitour trail comes to mind) there is a risk of the mountain beeing covered with paths making it useless in the end. Sure, most alpinists tends to walk along allready used trails, but that is not all of them. Which mean we should define more precisely at what point is a trail worse entering in OSM and when it is not. As a conservative measure, in the mean time, I'd strongly suggest not to tag trail that are trail_visibility:no sletuffe (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

There are often "invisible" paths when you approach a mountain peak. Often there is bare rock or gravel without path. Nevertheless the trail is helpful for planing hiking routes. I prefer to map such trails. Whether these trails are shown in a map is the decision of the renderer. --Rudolf (talk) 19:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to remove "Rendering Issues"

I propose to remove "Rendering Issues" from this page. The topic is "tagging of ways, points and areas related to hiking", not "rendering". This can be discussed on a page related to mapping.--Rudolf (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Totally agreed. The page Hiking_Map could hold that information as "generic hints for renderer" but not on the main "hiking" page sletuffe (talk) 12:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Very good idea. I will move this chapter as proposed.--Rudolf (talk) 19:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Trail Heads / Trail Registries

Many trails have a prominent trail head. How does one mark this? Some trails have log book to sign along the way. How does one mark these?

Where do footways fit in?

Neither iD nor JOSM show hiking-relevant tags on footways, the photo guides generally show urban paths as examples of footways. My impression is that footways are not very useful in the context of wilderness hiking. For trails which only allow hikers and prohibit horses and cycles, I believe the respective access tags are much more useful in combination with highway=path. I notice a number of mappers using h=path and h=footway based only on access restrictions, with no physical difference in the ways themselves or their relevance in the network, and I don't think that's right.

I would like to see this page clarify more about when highway=path + bicycle=no + horse=no is sufficient for foot-only paths and when h=footway should be used. My feeling is that h=footway is a fundamentally urban tag and has minimal use in hiking. How do other mappers feel? Dericke (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

My definition of footway is not necessarily "urban" but certainly one with a pretty good surface that you could walk with high heels and without a via ferrata kit. RicoZ (talk) 19:45, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I take the opposite view that highway=footway is for primarily walking paths, that could be an urban footpath or it could be a remote/wildness hiking route if designated as primarily for walking. I would prefer we update the descriptions here based on this. --Aharvey (talk) 03:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Synchronize wiki page Hiking, Walking Routes, route=hiking and route=foot on tagging scheme.

Currently, we have 4 pages explaining the tagging scheme for "walking route relations" (Hiking Walking Routes route:hiking Tag:route=foot). Could we have only one, and link to this in the three others? That might be perhaps easier to maintain. These 4 pages are almost the same. One major difference is the use of the word "Recommended" and "Required", which is different. We would have to settle on that. S8evq (talk) 10:05, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the idea, it is also possible to beging with syncing the 3 pages in order to facilitate the replacement of one part on a link by a link to the other. For tags, only type=route route=* should be required. the absence of a network does not prevent the creation of the relation, network should be recommended Marc marc (talk) 12:27, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

This has been done (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AHiking&type=revision&diff=1881155&oldid=1873056) --S8evq (talk) 20:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikitext strangeness - why use Image:Mf_node.svg and similar instead of IconNode template ?

I was going to change the entries of rungs and ladder to state that they can also be used for ways and stumbled upon this. RicoZ (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Sac_scale optional?

The difficulty evaluation of mountain trails is an important tool for tour planning and serves as accident prevention as well as information for the users, so that they can assess the expected requirements in relation to their abilities accordingly. Especially the overstrain caused by an inaccurate tour planning or insufficient information about the expected requirements is a frequent cause of accidents.

For mountain trails the difficulty rating should therefore always be given. This also helps routers and map providers to offer an adequate trail selection.

My proposal for the binding nature of the sac_scale specification:
„optional“ for hiking and easy mountain trails; T1, T2
„important“ for mountain and alpine trails; T3-T6
--RobHubi (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Term Alpine Route

The term "Alpine route" is ambiguous:

Alpine route in the OSM terminology

Is a continuously signed and clearly identifiable (by name, number or symbol) alpine route from A to B or a round trip.

Alpine route in the terminology of the Alpine clubs

Alpine routes are completely or partially pathless, unmaintained, unsecured and unsigned alpine trails. Wegehandbuch des Alpenvereins (DE, AT) (DE, AT) Page 25/204: https://www.alpenverein.at/portal_wAssets/docs/berg-aktiv/wege_touren/wegehandbuch_digital.pdf

The exact opposite meaning can lead to unpleasant misunderstandings. An additional section "Terms" could prevent this.--RobHubi (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2020 (UTC)