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Access adventure progressively!

Using data from trails and from a hiker's performance, planners can select hikes that gradually build capacity AND make it fun

March 20, 2020

 

It is clear from our review of existing trail rating systems that none of these accurately characterize or effectively communicate the range of trail difficulty in ways that are useful to hiking planners. As a result, hiking planners will find it very difficult to identify a range of hikes in their region that match the emerging capabilities of their hikers.  To address these shortcomings, we propose a system resting on the principle of progressive access.  Simple stated, progressive access extends existing standards for accessibility to capture increasing levels of difficulty in ways that are meaningful and useful to hikers, hiking partners, and hiking planners. By classifying hikes differently, progressive access helps in several ways.

Helping planners to select hikes to progressively challenge hikers without overwhelming them.

Given that these hikers may only be able to communicate their discomfort through behaviors that can rapidly become very disruptive, and that these hiking planners and partners must already overcome many other important barriers to hiking successfully,we wanted to design a rating system that makes finer distinctions between different levels of difficulty, especially for beginning hikers.  We apply progressive access through three different stages summarized here, and captured in more detail in the diagram to the right: (1) identifying a baseline hike, (2)  building the capacity of beginning hikers, and then (3) extending the capacity of more adventurous hikers. This allows hiking planners to be confident that they are selecting new hikes that are either no more challenging than previous hikes, or that represent an increase in challenge that is barely noticeable to a hiker. By capturing difficulty levels for each segment of a trail, hiking planners can confidently select a hike that is comparable to one already completed, and hiking partners can readily gauge the risks of continuing a hike on a day when disruptive behaviors have emerged unexpectedly. You can see what this looks like in our sample guidelines for Kennett Square.

Helping planners and partners to tailor each hike to the ability, experience, and preferences particular to that individual hiker.

Progressive access also recognizes that no single set of standards will be appropriate for all hikers. Hikers vary significantly with respect to the kinds of physical, cognitive, and social difficulties, and so a hiking planner will have to set goals for each hiker individually.  Progressive access offers guidelines regarding which dimensions to consider, and the points at which a different kind of hike presents a meaningful increase in difficulty level.

Helping a regional coordinator to build a regional trail inventory that captures the relevant features of hikes.

Can you identify to hikes of varying levels of difficulty based on information that is already available?  As it turns out, the answer is yes, at least in part.  The factors driving progressive access and that contribute most significantly to the difficulty of hikes that a beginner hiker might take also happen to be data that are likely to already be available, or that can be gathered without specialized equipment or training.  This makes it possible for a regional hiking coordinator to rapidly and confidently create a regional inventory for hikes on easier trails in a first phase, and then draw on users to create more detailed ratings of other trails in a second phase.

The way in which progressive access helps in planning hikes becomes clear when you begin to break a hiker's progress up into three stages (summarized above and to the right).  We detail how to build a baseline and a routine, and then how to begin with easier trails for beginning hikers and then introduce more challenging trails to more adventurous hikers. The pages focused on the beginning and the more adventurous hiker include more details about the factors that together determine the difficulty of a given hike, and that shine a light on the preferences a given hiker might have.  We summarize these in guidelines for hiking partners that are accompanied by a regional trail inventory of the different levels of hikes. In a final step, we describe how we identify, rate, and assemble these trails into the inventory.