Include "Climb" Attribute to Walks
Currently walks have distance, duration and difficulty. The difficulty attribute can vary depending on the users opinion (sometimes a couple of extra twigs on the track can alter the difficulty). For example the walk "Mount Beerburrum Lookout" is marked as hard but 'technically' it is easy (it's 700m of sealed path but a 150m climb).
In conjunction with all of these attributes I would like the "Climb (meters)" attribute. This will make it easier for users to better gauge what they are in for.
As I track my walks via GPS I have the climb attribute of ~150 walks.
Climb attribute has been added now along with a max elevation as well (which can be useful for high altitude locations that we don’t really experience much in Australia). Still some work to do with ongoing calculation from GPS but I’ve calculated it for any GPS data we have at the moment.
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Anonymous commented
Hi, because you run this "Aussie Bushwalking" site - are you able to gain permission from somebody. (city council, or otherwise) to put in new signage yourself, on poorly marked tracks, in the form of icon or logo marked stakes?
You may be able to get some other members of the bushwalking site to assist you in placing signage in ideal locations on tracks. Somebody who knows routes well may help you navigate and placing stakes in clearly visable areas.
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Rob Nicholson commented
Great. The problem with most gauges is they are up for interpretation. Eg some people may think a walk is hard and others easy. The climb attribute is a number so it gives a clearer idea of how difficult/strenuous the walk is. Eg I didn't have a problem with walk x, walk y has a similar distance and climb therefore I should be able to handle it.
I don't think the fitness gauge would be too useful as it is highly dependent on each person, very debatable.
A basic navigation gauge would be handy for users to easily identify those walks with poor direction/signage. When people tick a walk sometimes they mention the (poor) navigation. Often before doing a long walk the user must sift through all the comments to get the full picture. I think the following options would be useful:
Navigation/Signage:
- Good (clearly defined track / easy to determine where to go)
- Poor in some areas (some parts of the walk do not have a clear track or signage / possible to get lost)
- Poor (requires a GPS or guide in certain or most of the track / could get lost easily)