Mapping routes for XC passes on Open Street Maps?

[erutan]

I was chatting with the former trails manager of SEKI a while back after our paths crossed (author of the SEKI's recent trails appendix K [pdf] for their most recent management plan) about this and other subjects, so felt I'd reach out and try and get a feel for opinions on this / community norms. There's no right or wrong here, as it's about values, priorities, and norms, etc, but it could be an interesting discussion.

I'm personally of the feeling that uploading gpx files for xc passes is a bad thing overall for a few reasons:

1) They promote the creation of social trails on passes where there is no needle to thread, which detracts from the wilderness characteristic. Anecdotally since Skurka put up a GPX of Roper's HSR, passes have been getting more boots in the same spot creating noticeable wear. This is a little complex because there is a tipping point - on lightly used routes having people disperse prevents erosion & creation of tracks, on heavily used ones (Lamarck Col, Cathedral, Dana, Langley, etc which are now sort of unadvertised Class 1 trails) having a proper path can reduce braiding and spiderwebbing of routes, hence improving the wilderness aesthetic and reducing erosion impacts.

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2) They detract from the routefinding experience, and can get people in over their heads if they think there's a "trail" there. I'm not sure how many people check the metadata on trails for SAC rating, visibility, informal flag etc.

3) They're often a subjective take on a pass - the upper part of the miter side of crabtree pass wanders between a snow route and an optimal dry one (the second time I did it there was an OSM track, I was curious about it and when double checking location or dropping a waypoint I'd see where I was in relation to it and didn't find it useful).

Old trails feel fair game to me - Junction, Cartridge, Dragon Lake, etc. Likewise if an existing social trail has been created, there is probably value in concentrating feet on it. For Crabtree I think having the old trail up to Sky Blue is fine, but I'd have it stop there on that side vs going all the way up to the pass. The old packer trail up the Crabtree side is well defined at the top and bottom, but fades between middle and upper crabtree - just having those fragments there might be good, or keeping it there?

Valor Pass is on durable terrain, so there's not so much of an impact, but it's also CYOA aside from being funneled into two choices at the very top, which could just be shown via the placement on the pass name on Topo - I don't see any value in a gpx route being added for that as it'd be pretty arbitrary. One exception to my general take on things might be passes like Cirque where people either don't read Secor or pay enough attention and end up on Class 4, which could lead to more injuries / SAR calls - maybe just have the lower southern section outlined?

I personally like making waypoints and labeling them vs recording tracks (which can get noisy when under cover or near cliff faces anyways) as they're sort of contextual cairns that don't impact the landscape, but that's an idiosyncratic thing and I'm sure there's people that feel I'm giving too much information, as well as some that would prefer less.

[c9h13no3]

Yeah, I'm against putting anything without a trail on open street maps. Furthermore, I delete them when I find evidence of stuff like this. All trails is the same pile of garbage, with backcountry ski routes, climbing routes, and other such crap being uploaded as a "trail".

For example, there used to be a "trail" shown on DAFF dome in Yosemite. This "trail" had a mandatory rappel for the descent and going up would be 5.hard. I chopped out the portion of the "trail" that was rap required.

I've also added climber's trails in various places, since they usually have evident tread and are maintained. Again, to try and keep everyone using the same path to minimize impact.

Horse Creek Pass is one spot that could really benefit from a more defined trail. There are so many eroded braids to that thing, it's such an eye sore seeing 3 other trails go up the canyon while you're on a different braid of the trail. Even with the path showing up on OSM, it's still a mess.

[Wandering Daisy]

Personally, I am against crowd-sourced GPS tracks. Too many are simply not the best path or worse just wrong. I agree with most of your points on why this is not a good idea. In my opinion, you need to learn to read a map, figure out the route based on a good written description, and do your own micro-route finding, while doing off-trail routes; start easy and improve your skills as you progress to harder off-trail routes. Following a GPS track is NOT navigation. I am not against GPS in general. I just do not like the idea of brainless "dot-to-dot" hiking, totally reliant on something electronic that is not 100% reliable.

Another gripe of mine is putting up a GPS track route, naming it some cleaver catchy name and then "selling" it on the internet. This just invites over-use. I like the way Roper initially did his guide- real book, general descriptions with plenty of leeway to do your own route-finding. There are now too many cairns and use-trails all along this route. I am glad I did it before this all happened.

But we older backpackers who feel this way are a dying breed. Most younger backpackers want GPS tracks. I think you will see more in the future, not less. My hope is that young people who use GPS tracks are also learning navigation skills along the way and become confident enough to devise their own routes to become real explorers.

[LMBSGV]

Another gripe of mine is putting up a GPS track route, naming it some cleaver catchy name and then "selling" it on the internet. This just invites over-use.

The internet has made it possible for people to monetize almost anything and everything.

I think you will see more in the future, not less.

The genie is out of the bottle and there is no way all our righteous indignation is going to change the future.

But we older backpackers who feel this way are a dying breed.

Exactly. I am just glad I made it to some amazing places before the existence of the internet and GPS tracks.

Thank you WD for expressing it so well.

[Bishop_Bob]

Another gripe of mine is putting up a GPS track route, naming it some cleaver catchy name and then "selling" it on the internet. This just invites over-use.

The internet has made it possible for people to monetize almost anything and everything.

I recall one of the more prolific ones trying to market a map set on HST. In the course of being shut down, he disclosed that he hadn't even completed the route he was trying to sell the map set for.

[erutan]

@c9h13no3 - I've come across some of those in the southwest - some trail of straight lines between 5 waypoints that require a rap and don't have any footprints on them, let alone cairns or footpaths. I've deleted some of them, other's I added the approrpriate metadata for and renamed something like "____ climbing approach (approx)". It's obviously a "I did this once" kind of thing with no context. Luckily we were able to routefind a bypass, but it creates weird situations.

Horse Creek is another good use case for having a trail - if it had the funding it'd probably get changed into a proper class 1 trail to avoid braiding ala Bubbs, Dana, Lamarck Col, Langley, etc.

Looking at OSM there's an "ice lake pass" trail going up little slide canyon. There's a solid use trail up to the waterfall, but past it things were very CYOA and Bridgeport rangers would knock down any cairns above that to keep it more routefindy - but that was a while back and I haven't done it since 2014 or 2015. Amusingly the mazelike ridge W of Ice Lake is one of the few spots where I've found cairns genuinely useful, and the OSM route deviates from my waypoints fairly strongly.

There's a little trail fragment on slide canyon for the bypass (the first time I carried my pack through the talus - fun but tiring!) that's higher up than the footpath I took when I did it a second time trip leading someone else.

@daisy, LMBSGV

I'm in a sort of middle ground - I like having my phone with high resolution topo and GPS positioning (I'm above treeline most of the time, so the GPS isn't as critical, but it can let me make better choices especially in my solo XC days flying with no beta), but I'm against GPX tracks and have never used any in the Sierra. I've recorded a few to follow community norms on hikearizona when finding a spot worthy of adding a guide to, but that's pretty much the only time I use them aside from ones for fading yet supposedly maintained trails that are misplaced on both OSM & USGS. The vast majority of terrain is CYOA with maybe a spot or two you really need to hit, and routefinding is part of the fun - I find uphill oddly less tiring feeling than slogging up switchbacks due to the fact that I'm more engaged with the terrain.

I guess part of the reason why I'm against the classic trip report with descriptions of basins & google earth is because it feels they take the mystery away. I destroy every cairn I see unless it's one marking something that changes a class or more of significance (the one class 2 ledge amongst class 4 etc). Cairn norms could be another thread I guess heh. My last major trip of last summer I was off trail for a bit over a week (davis lakes > martha > valor pass > blackcap basin > finger col > ionian basin > black giant pass) and it was rare to come across social trails unless they were within a couple hundred feet of a pass and I only saw two groups or two, one at a distance. Ionian felt untouched aside from a small handful of fairly discrete camps and Blackcap surprisingly so. There's still plenty of passes with no names that I've done, I'm always sort of torn between adding in as an unofficial pass in the xc passes subforum or just leaving as is for others to stumble across... it's interesting chatting with some people who did things before they had the names I know them.

I've never done Roper's HSR, though I've been on most of it in the course of other trips, and it is interesting how probably 80% of the people I meet offtrail are on it, and sort of confused I'm near bighorn pass or something and not doing it myself heh. The acronym chasing (apparently since the 90s interestingly, so internet / smartphones / social media isn't the sole culprit) is real and annoying, but on the other hand you just know to expect a horde of people in certain areas and the majority of the time there's no one else around.

At the end of the day it's all gonna get messed up by climate change, but I think there's value in protecting (an obviously ever evolving) wilderness experience while it lasts.

In regards to the comment of them being non-optimal paths, it reminds me of something the former SEKI trails manager said along those lines about cairns - anyone that drops them regularly is probably not as experienced as he is, so there's likely little to be gained by following them.

@Bishop_Bob - I imagine that was the YHR?

@enigmagic any thoughts? You're heavily into OSM and we've chatted about things before.

[wildhiker]

I'm apparently "acronym challenged". Could someone please explain what "CYOA" means? Choose Your Own Attitude? Consume Your Own Air?
-Phil

[Bishop_Bob]

@Bishop_Bob - I imagine that was the YHR?

As I recall, it was the "KCHBR"
Looking back at the thread, it's pretty comedic.

[erutan]

wildhiker: choose your own adventure - it's just what I put for passes where there's no major route finding required and it's just personal preference or marginal enough differences it's not worth getting into - if you wiggle on this specific route you avoid 30 feet of stable talus or whatever. People can figure it out or not, and there's a decent chance whatever they come up with will be as good or better than any beta I can give.

The whole explosion of acronymed 'routes' thing is ridiculous IMO. Roper's HSR was fine as an alternative to the JMT, but if someone can't plan their own trips there's tons of trip reports they can follow without creating more hyped hotspots of usage.

The thread bob mentioned is worth the read viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12540. An aside from that re: comparing the work Roper had put in to the KCHBR was one comment that the routefinding down from north glacier pass was harder to describe than routefind - I was expecting it to be less trivial as well, but can appreciate how it was spelled out. It's sort of the opposite of Secor describing the ridge gained at mosquito pass in unnecessary detail (odd for him!) while being a bit vague about gaining it.

[Gogd]

Whether we map new routes or not doesn't address the core of the problem. But in the context of mapping or marking current XC routes, I say NO! I already find enough trash on remote passes and vista points, without facilitating access to those who otherwise would remain content back at their base camps, littering their tent site.

Some advents in the larger world drive backcountry activities. The population in California has doubled since I was a child. This has created a corresponding increase in backcountry activity. There is only so much real estate the determined hermit hiker can retreat to, as the number of on-trail campers populate established trails and destinies. As the general population increases so, too, does the number of hermits seeking total solitude. I remember ski trekking the upper basins abutting the west side of the Palisades Massif, and not seeing a track or soul all week. Those days are long gone!

The Sierra once was crossed primarily by the occasional native route. Nineteenth century cattle and sheep operations created significantly more trails, as did the early 20th century outfitters guides. Later in the century the government improved existing trails and added new ones. These combined efforts account for most trails currently appearing on USGS maps. It is inevitable that the burgeoning recreational use of the mountains will result in even more trails.

I don't know if there is a winning solution to conserving the existing appearance of the mountains and the quintessential solitude we crave in the Sierra. I remember when Joshua Tree NP was classified as a National Monument. As soon as it gained NP status, attendance shot WAY up. NP classification brought NP level funding, and the park embarked on a infrastructure building binge. There was is a trail called the Boy Scout trail, that followed an old double track through the high country, a legacy from the days before vehicles were banned in the area. The double track faded over the decades to a single track. But when Josh was assigned NP status, the increased traffic wore the path wider; it now is just as wide as the old double track route. The flora proximal to the path has also suffered. Part of the park's new infrastructure are a bunch of new side routes from pre-existing paths to rock formally documented climbing routes, complete with junction signs informing hikers of their options. Just the presence of a trail sign invites more people to stray off the main path and explore these side routes. The trouble is they take numerous alternate routes back to the main trails, creating extensive braiding in the process, and dramatically impacting the fragile ecology. Sounds familiar?

We have a field of dreams paradox: If we build additional access to backcountry destinies, they will come! New trails will gain the attention of trail hikers, get used and result in varying degrees of crowding where very few previously camped, the inevitable additional wear, and some level of abuse. On the other hand if we don't accommodate the increasing number of campers, they will overflow whatever venues conventional hikers currently avail themselves to, damaging existing trail destinies in the process, and creating unregulated wear and tear of terrain they expand out to, that was formerly considered the domain of mountaineers and adventurous day hikers. Even if the trail hikers don't infiltrate regions currently considered untracked, the increase in trekker hikers is destined to leave a mark. A careful scrutiny of most any peak or pass will lead the explorer to conclude there are few objectives remaining that one can claim as a first assent.

The current quota policies and regulations trace back to a significant expansion in backcountry management policies that occurred in the 1980s. I have witnessed significant improvement of alpine lake shore lines along popular routes, and return of downed wood that formerly was stripped from the area to build fires. These quotas and activity restrictions worked. This leads me to conclude expansion of existing quotas remain the most promising approach to preserving the wilderness as a physical asset, as well as a metaphysical experience.

Ed