[Tagging] hiking and foot route relations - is there any consistent difference?

Peter Elderson pelderson at gmail.com
Sat Jan 11 14:24:00 UTC 2020


+1
If don't see this as a problem.  If more clarity is needed, add tags for specific aspects. E.g "vigour" scale if one exists. Boot type recommendation scale, where 1=flipflop and 10=hoverboots.

Mvg Peter Elderson

> Op 11 jan. 2020 om 14:59 heeft Joseph Eisenberg <joseph.eisenberg at gmail.com> het volgende geschreven:
> 
> Back in August there was a thread titled "Merging tagging scheme on
> wiki pages of Hiking, route=hiking, route=foot and Walking routes"
> which led to a new template
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Template:Tagging_scheme_for_hiking_and_foot_route_relations
> - used on route=hiking and route=foot pages.
> 
> However, I'm disappointed that the text ended up claiming this:
> 
> "route=foot is used for routes which are walkable without any
> limitations regarding fitness, equipment or weather conditions. As a
> guideline, you could say that walking shoes (at a pinch, even
> flip-flops) are adequate for this type of walking trail."
> 
> This is all quite subjective. Folks here in Indonesia climb 3500 meter
> mountain passes in flip-flops.
> 
> "route=hiking is used for routes that rather match Wikipedia's
> definition: "A long, vigorous walk, usually on trails, in the
> countryside"). As a guideline, you could say that a hiking trail needs
> hiking boots because you will encounter sharp rocks and/or heavy
> undergrowth and/or muddy terrain and/or have to wade through shallow
> streams."
> 
> Again, very Western / European perspective to mention "needs hiking boots".
> 
> I asked about this on the wiki talk page, and Brian de Ford said:
> 
> "Google walking versus hiking and you will get many results agreeing
> that there is a distinction. No two of them entirely agree on what the
> differences are, but there is core agreement that hiking is more
> vigorous than walking. One insists that there must be a change in
> elevation (just about every road and sidewalk around here involves
> changes in elevation, so by that definition I hike to the shops).
> Several agree that equipment required makes a difference (style of
> footwear and need for a cane/stick). Many say that the nature of the
> surface makes the difference. Others say it's the terrain. There's a
> difference, but it may be hard to agree on definitions for OSM. BTW,
> parts of the UK also have "hillwalking" (which appears to be hiking
> where hills are involved) and rambling (essentially unmappable because
> there is no route)."
> 
> It sounds like there is no verifiable difference between route=foot
> and route=hiking, so database users should not expect these tags to be
> used in a consistent way. Each mapper has there own idea of what they
> mean.
> 
> - Joseph Eisenberg
> 
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