[OSM-talk] Hiking Trails

[Rik van der Helm]

Hello Sven,

> currently Im trying to map the ways of a hiking tour I recently did in
> the Swiss Alpes. 

Have been hiking myself there lately also, nice country
http://www.communitywalk.com/switserland/jura_ridgeway/map/132405

> As far as alpine trails are concerned I would need at least 3-4 types of
> ways to describe what the official Swiss map of trails has and to make
> this useful for others.

I don't think there is a need to copy/paste the swiss topomaps to osm.
Allthough it is always good to explore which functions can be
interesting for osm.

> I read the proposal at
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Trail which is
> talking about permission to use a trail only and not about who might be
> able to use the trail.

The proposal is trying to find an alternative for
highway=footway,cycleway,bridleway with the purpose to get rid of the
implied 'legal status' on these ways. There are other proposals which
cope with the quality and usage of trails/pathes.

> * hiking trail "Wanderweg"
> * mountain trails (hiking boots required) "Bergwanderwege"

Maybe you can describe these a bit better. Sounds like surface quality,
which is handled by the surface tag (Key:surface) There is discussion to
extend this tag (now:paved/unpaved).

> * trails without visible trail (with official markers) "Alpine Routen"
> * trails without visible trail (without official markers)

These are handled by the network tag (Proposed_features/Network)

I myself am working on a proposal to tag pathes and small country roads
in the Netherlands (Nl:Recreatieve_paden_wegen). I am thinking about
primary tagging them route=road/track/path/trail based on width of the
path. Accompanying tags will be 'access', 'surface' and 'network'.

Gr, Rik
http://www.opentrail.net