[Talk-GB] Advice please: Goat tracks in mountain areas

[nathan case]

Looking at the Strava Heatmap, there’s pretty good “heat” for that route. It’s definitely not as strong as the paths to the north and south of it, but it is certainly there. This indicates that more than just the occasional walker has used it (considering only a fraction of walkers would upload their data to Strava).

https://www.strava.com/heatmap#16.00/-4.07493/53.07432/hot/all (you’d need to log in for high resolution)

Now I’m not sure how Strava builds up the Heatmap, i.e. how often it is refreshed/updated or how many users over what time period this level of heat relates to, but it does appear this route is in use.

In which case, is it actually a path by virtue of use?


From: Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net>
Sent: 06 February 2022 20:16
To: talk-gb OSM List (E-mail) <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Advice please: Goat tracks in mountain areas

Gruff Owen wrote:
> I'd very much appreciate your views on this and would be interested
> if similar Ways have been discussed in the past?

I've just discussed this with a qualified mountain leader with a lot of experience of Snowdon. They say:

"I know this area pretty well and I don't believe it exists. The route indicates it goes off on the outside of the final zigzag as you climb the Pyg track. I've sat there many times waiting for groups and there isn't a path off, on or near that corner.

"I suspect it's been picked up because the OS 1:25k map shows a grey line of crags that could be mistaken for some kind of boundary, which in turn lots of people mistake for a path."

As such I don't see the value in keeping it in OSM. We have already correctly recorded the legal possibility of walking it (i.e. it's within an access land polygon). It isn't a path legally, historically, or on the ground. The eastern end (alone) is perhaps an animal track, or a line of crags, that the occasional walker has followed. There are thousands of those on hillsides across Britain, and we don't map those as paths either.

If Gruff and a local mountain leader don't believe it's a path, and it doesn't have any particular legal path status, then we shouldn't keep it as a path. OSM values on-the-ground survey above all else, and we have two surveys here saying "not a path".

Richard
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