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I don't know the English name of the path! This kind of path/trail is used by mountaineers for coming down the steep slopes only. Walking up is very hard and not usual. You can dig your heel in the ground step by step and sliding down rapidly. can I add incline=down to distinguish this kind of path form other hiking trails? such as:

highway=path surface=unpaved/gravel/sand... sac_scale=* incline=down

asked 04 May '19, 14:37

babri's gravatar image

babri
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edited 04 May '19, 14:39

As it may help some of our linguistically gifted members, what is your non-English name for them?

(04 May '19, 17:46) InsertUser
1

I think the 'English' for this is glissade which only seems to appear on the wiki in the French SAC scale page in relation to T5 and T6 trails.

(04 May '19, 18:14) InsertUser

In Persian (Farsi), it is named شن اسکی which literally means "sand ski".

Glissade is on snow/ice but that is on gravenl, sand or soft dirt on scree regions. "Snad skiing" hear does not include any sliding, but is similar to running down stairs with long steps. The sac scale of the pathes I passed is mostly T2 or T3.

I didn't find any English equivalent for this word, while it is widely used in mountaineering/hikihg culture of Iranians.

(04 May '19, 19:00) babri

The English is "screen run", "standing glissade" would be the technique used to descend them. We don't really have any left in the UK: they've all been degraded by too many people running down them and most now are quite unpleasant, not at all like they were originally. I would possibly tag them with a higher SAC scale as there is a technique to descending them and as they are usually steep there are often objective hazards (falling, stone fall, small cliffs). Also they are very unpleasant to ascend when part of a route. I'm not sure that most are recognisable paths as the best conditions are likely to be in places which still retain small stones.

(04 May '19, 20:12) SK53 ♦
1

"Scree run"; that's it.
You are right. The surface of the path is critically important for applicability of the scree run. Essentially, I do not insert such dangerous pathes you mentioned to the map, but where the surface is a deep layer of sands or small gravels, or soft ground, the scree run is the safest and fasted way of descending. There are many scree run trails in Iran which are very pleasant for hikers who know the technic.

(05 May '19, 08:22) babri

Adding incline=down is a good idea. It's definitely not just for vehicle roads; I use it on footways and steps all the time. But adding it will not imply that the trail is difficult/impossible to hike in the upward direction.

One suggestion that came up on the tagging list a few weeks ago for this sort of situation was oneway=recommended. But it's an extremely uncommon tag so it's unlikely that any routing software will respect this value. (Not that that's a reason not to use it.)

As far as the surface tag, I'd just go with surface=scree.

Regardless, I definitely agree that you should describe the situation explicitly, something like description=trail descends steep scree slope, walking uphill on this trail is extremely difficult and not recommended

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answered 04 May '19, 21:59

jmapb's gravatar image

jmapb
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accept rate: 22%

edited 04 May '19, 22:00

Adding description is required but it does not change the rendering of the path.
When a hiker read the map to plan a hiking path, he/she shall know: "There is a good path here for descending, but it cannot be used for ascending." So there must be a diffidence between a normal hiking trail and a scree run path on the map.
And about the "surface=scree", it is not an OSM approved tag and it will not be rendered. So the question is remained.

(05 May '19, 08:38) babri

The incline=down only indicates that the path goes downhill in the direction the way is drawn so while it may be appropriate, it doesn't imply any particular bias as to ease of use in each direction.

It may be tempting to use oneway=*, but this is for legal or prescribed directions not ease of use and is inappropriate here unless there are signs saying 'for descent only' or similar.

This would be something I might suggest one of the mailinglists but the ones that look most relevant seem pretty quiet and the tagging list has a "high traffic" warning for good reason.

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answered 04 May '19, 18:09

InsertUser's gravatar image

InsertUser
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accept rate: 19%

Thanks for information. You say incline=down is meaningful for vehicle roads only. And oneway=* is only related to legality of the direction and not useful for hiking trails.

(04 May '19, 19:08) babri

Look at MTB tagging which differentiate between ascent & descent.

(04 May '19, 20:13) SK53 ♦
2

@babri the incline tag is appropriate for most highway=* including paths but only says if the nodes are going up or down and nothing about any differences in how you travel along them.

(04 May '19, 21:52) InsertUser

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question asked: 04 May '19, 14:37

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last updated: 05 May '19, 08:38

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