The idea, as mentioned in an earlier thread today, is that you look at the grade assigned to a SOTA summit and at a glance you have an idea of how difficult it will be to get to the summit - once you have grasped the elements of the system. These are as follows:
WALK-IN
Short walk, perhaps car park in AZ.
Car park near start of climb.
Long walk from car park to start of climb.
Substantial walk, expect activation to take full day.
Day-long trek, possibly expect activation to take two days.
Problematic: difficult route-finding, obstacles to avoid, magnetic rock etc.
Hard: perhaps narrow zig-zag ridge with gendarmes and dead ends.
SUMMIT CONDITIONS
Straight-forward grassland.
Rough, tussocks and/or heather.
Scrub or woodland.
Scree, clitter, rock pavement etc.
Jagged naked rock.
Now let us try it with a few sample summits:
Firstly, my “local”, Walton Hill G/CE-002. A nearby carpark, a good track to the summit ridge, a footpath to the summit, a straight-forward route and a grassy summit, I would put this at 21311.
Something a bit harder, how about Tryfan, GW/NW-006. A carpark near the start, a rough path to the gully leading to the North Ridge, a bit of a scramble in places but a straight-forward route to follow, and a rocky summit, I would put that at 22415. Incidentally, if you don’t fancy the trade route up the North ridge but prefer going up the “Heather Terrace” to the col, I would rate that as 22425, but it probably makes sense to just grade the trade route for each summit.
Finally, one that even the strongest of us might consider a bit of a stretch: A’Mhaighdean GM/NS-013. A 27 mile round walk, partly good tracks and partly very rough going, a scrambling ascent and a stoney summit, I would put it at 53444, it would make sense to camp at Carnmore and add GM/NS-021.
Finally, one that even the strongest of us might consider a bit of a
stretch: A’Mhaighdean GM/NS-013. A 27 mile round walk, partly good
tracks and partly very rough going, a scrambling ascent and a stoney
summit, I would put it at 53444, it would make sense to camp at
Carnmore and add GM/NS-021.
Comments?
What are your thoughts on me carrying the following to this summit… FT-857, 22Ah SLAB, Antron-99, Triple 5/8 Colinear, Fishing Pole Antenna, Kite Antenna and five 5ft. poles?
Hard: perhaps narrow zig-zag ridge with gendarmes and dead ends.
Isn’t that a bit specific? Wouldn’t “law enforcement officers” be a better international description?
On a more serious note, shouldn’t there be a sixth digit for access limitations? Perhaps
1 = public right of access
2 = private land, but access by prior permission
3 = access only at specific times (live-firing ranges, etc)
4 = no permitted access at any time
5 = access strictly forbidden - risk of arrest, injury or death!
Now, who is going to categorise those many thousands of SOTA summits?
How will rating disputes be resolved?
Where is all this data going to reside?
What will be the update mechanism?
I think you’ve created yourself a job-for-life Brian (after the FAQs, of course!).
What are your thoughts on me Carrying the following to this summit… FT-857, 22Ah SLAB, Antron-99, Triple 5/8 Colinear, Fishing Pole Antenna, Kite Antenna and five 5ft. poles?
Whilst I may agree that a grading system maybe worthwhile and even a “nice to have” they are always subjective. This is based on fitness, ability etc etc. The other issue is the multitude of routes up a summit so each route would need a grade.
If anything I would go for a more fact based system for a route using distances and time (using Naismith’s or similar).
So for hill X route 1 we may have.
Total Distance - 5km
Total Ascent - 450m
Estimated Time - 1.75 Hours
Track Type - Good path.
Although I do find reading activation reports is the best resource and the various resources contained on the individual summit pages. For established associations, activation count is a good pointer too.
I guess the one number I look at most would be an estimated time of ascent. That would help in planning more than anything else.
A good idea in theory Brian but despite the guidelines there is still a certain amount of subjectivity involved - OK if 1 person did all the grading you would soon work out what to expect.
“Something a bit harder, how about Tryfan, GW/NW-006. A carpark near the start, a rough path to the gully leading to the North Ridge, a bit of a scramble in places but a straight-forward route to follow, and a rocky summit, I would put that at 22415. Incidentally, if you don’t fancy the trade route up the North ridge but prefer going up the “Heather Terrace” to the col, I would rate that as 22425, but it probably makes sense to just grade the trade route for each summit”
You could put people off attempting a summit at all if you just graded the ‘trade route’ - ie the North ridge for Tryfan. Would you be noting there are other routes which may be easier - ie up to the Bristly Ridge/Tryfan col and along the ridge. I have done this route and the Heather Terrace route but not yet attempted the North Ridge. Perhaps both the ‘trade route’ and the easiest route should be graded. Also, will you therefore be detailing the graded route?
Going back to subjectivity - “a bit of a scramble in places but a straight-forward route to follow” - that sounds reasonably easy, but you are a climber so your perspective may be slightly different to mine and mine to the next person!
A good idea involving an awful lot of work which could possibly be fraught with problems??
I took so long phrasing that reply with interruptions many comments have been made before my post.
Ian G7ADF “I guess the one number I look at most would be an estimated time of ascent. That would help in planning more than anything else.”
even that is not much help Ian, unless Naismith’s times are stated - Roger MW0IDX will do a route in half the time it takes me and Barry M0IML even faster.
There would also have to be very carefully worded statements along the lines of personal opinion, at your own risk, not responsible etc in today’s increasingly litigious society.
I think this is a splendid idea, Brian! I’d suggest a different approach for your WALK-IN rating.
Here in the W6 Northern Sierra region, the trailheads for many of our summits are 10 or more miles from the nearest paved road. When someone says that they will be in my area and asks for summit recommendations, my first reply question is always “What type of vehicle do you have?”. The quality of the dirt road(s) one must travel from the nearest paved road to the trailhead varies greatly, and usually gets progressively worse along the way. The distance one must walk in (not including the actual climb) then becomes a function of the type of vehicle an activator has.
I’d make the WALK-IN rating a table of required walk-to-trailhead miles (or kilometers) such as this, with the total distance from the paved road to the trailhead being 14 miles in this example (the passenger car is capable of driving only the first 1.6 miles of dirt roads):
Passenger Car – 12.4 miles
Rugged 2WD Vehicle – 8.5 miles
Stock 4WD Vehicle (e.g., SUV) – 3.5 miles
Rugged, High-Clearance 4WD Vehicle – 1 mile
4WD ATV – 0 miles
Dirt Bike (i.e., Motorcycle designed for off-road use) – 0 miles
This would also handle the frequent cases when our government has decided to designate a National Forest motorized route as a Trail vs. a Road (meaning that vehicles must be no more than 50 inches wide to travel them) regardless of the route’s surface quality, or has further designated the motorized Trail to only be open to motorcycles.
I believe that many other regions in North America are similar, in that the length and quality of the dirt roads between pavement and the trailhead are a major determinant in one’s decision to activate or not activate the summit.
73,
Eric KU6J
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Free SOTA Spot Monitor Software + RBNGate FAQ: http://www.ku6j.com
A stringent rating system sounds like a lot (too much?) of definitions, disputes and administration. Smaller and perhaps more pragmatic approach: Have a possibility to report noticeable issues - being verbal it might be clearer. The notes may range from “Ignore sign ‘Road closed’, as it is closed only behind the car park”, to special difficulties with regard to rockclimbing/mounting the antenna, absence/faults of waymarkers, hints for rather hidden starting or antenna mounting points, aggressive dogs, armed landowners etc.
Which leads to the central question: Where to locate this very helpful infos of any kind about a summit? A comment field in the sotawatch-description of the summits?
More information about a summit may make it even more inviting for SOTA-newcomers or even experienced newcomers to a given mountain.
I have thought for some time it would be a good idea to have along with Home-Spots-Alerts-Summits-Reflector- etc. menu headers a ‘Reports’ items where instead of the information going onto the reflector it is deposited there. I know people put things under ‘resources’ on the summit detail but a ‘Reports’ bag would be good…
Thanks Brian for thinking about the grading but I think the information is a moving target.
Well, you could always use the Tracks page in the SOTA Mapping Project to record a track and include as many notes or comments, or even pictures/graphics about a route to a summit, including any grading notes you wish. That’s what the page is for! Help files are there to give you a start, it’s up to the user what he/she decides to include.
To date, there are over 80 user-defined tracks or routes already available to view. Try it - you might like it.
Ascending hills is far from new and by no means just a SOTA thing. The idea of grading walks is nearly as old as the hills. Some research into existing walk grading systems might be revealing. The lack of one widely accepted system might give some pointers towards the fundamental problems with the idea. In my view the idea is without legs and anything more than Easy/Moderate/Hard will never get anywhere. …even that probably wont help.
TRAIL magazine uses a 1-5 point rating system of the following:
Strenuousness
Navigation
Technicality - Walks
Technicality - Scrambles/climbs
I must admit their ratings explained gives the sort of information even a fellwalking beginner would find very easy to understand and hence make a decision as to a route’s suitability. Brian’s grading system gives additional useful information.
In reply to DM1CM:
Only wish it would work with an existing SOTA-login and without one more registration/password and allow inserting text without drawing one of the many possible tracks (at least here in this DM-region there are many car-park/track-combinations only to be decided by timebudget and personal preferences).
But nevertheless this could be the “bag” to be filled with info, dirt road length and subjective grading, notwithstanding that a big lot of research may be done in the sotawatch-list of summits with its list about previous activations etc.
“Only wish it would work with an existing SOTA-login and without one more registration/password…”. Me too! But the Mapping Project is not affiliated with SOTA, so we can’t use their password/registration (and neither do we have access to their database). Unfortunately any internet application accepting user input for storage has to have such controls, otherwise chaos would reign supreme!
I’ll think about how to include user-input summit infos without having to define a track…
That is an interesting idea. There is similar rating in the Alps for hiking and ski touring, but I do not know if that has ever been applied to Nordic summits yet. The Nordic summits involve more walking and less climbing than in Alps so there is probably one more parameter involved.
The series of five numbers are a little cryptic and hard to remember for me. I would rather use two letters like
WALK-IN
SW (short walk from public road)
CW (close walk)
LW (long walk)
ST (short trek)
LT (long trek)
but the native English speakers can probably find something better.
Read the articles and links from the SOTAwatch information page for that summit.
Look at the map for that summit.
Read the activation reports for that summit.
Look at the Database history for that summit.
Put the summit into Google.
If a 5/6 digit rating did exist for each summit, I would still do all the above things, because if I did have questions, I would want more detail in the answers.
Is that the Trail magazine which graded the Lairig Ghru as an easy winter walk??
(For those who don’t know the Cairngorms - this is a serious long distance walk in summer with some difficulties; in winter it is a full-on arctic expedition with very deep snow, low temperatures and avalanche probabilities. No shelter either except in one refuge and one bothy)
(and neither do we have access to their database). Unfortunately any internet application accepting user input for storage has to have such controls, otherwise chaos would reign supreme!