I was tagging tracks in the desert, and ran across some similar issues. Some of 
the tracks are abandoned because they were no longer needed/ wanted 
(officially) in a wilderness park, or heavily damaged or unmantainable because 
of the road's position in a ravine.  But people who want to use the old road 
with very high off-road skill, can drive them without flipping or destroying 
their off-road 4x4.  1m gullies and boulders make up sections of the road, 
requiring a bit of rock crawling to get through. 

This is not in a sports context, but necessity - access down a 1 km long ravine 
from a plateau in the badlands is the only way to continue north into the next 
(easily accessed) valley, without having to drive around the mountains for 3 
hours. But you could get your truck stuck/ flipped/ totaled because the 
condition of the road is so unbelievably bad. It is beyond having 4x4 - it is 
having the skill and risk  acceptance required to go drive the road correctly. 

And yes, it is marked on USGS maps as a track. 

Javbw

> On Oct 27, 2014, at 11:56 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 2014-10-27 15:22 GMT+01:00 Ronnie Soak <[email protected]>:
>> It may be usable on foot if dried out over a long time or if frozen.
> 
> 
> yes, this is a general problem with unpaved ways that usability might 
> (depending on the actual composition and grain size) heavily depend on the 
> weather conditions, especially humidity and temperature.
> 
>  
>> 
>> tracktype does not offer a solution for this, as worse grades are described 
>> as being closer to undisturbed nature, while the opposite is the case here.
> 
> 
> actually tracktype is not about "undisturbed nature", it is about how much 
> the way is built up and how much not, in combination with actual smoothness / 
> usability (i.e. it is somehow subjective). In your case it would probably be 
> a tracktype=grade5 because otherwise the way would not have been damaged that 
> much ;-)
> 
>  
>> 
>> sac_scale comes to mind, but this is a track not a path and it has nothing 
>> to do with alpine hiking.
> 
> 
> +1, wouldn't use it
> 
>  
>> 
>> track_visibility does also not cover this, as these tracks are if anything 
>> MORE visible now.
> 
> 
> +1
> 
>  
>> 
>> Even surface or smoothness can't describe this, as simply tagging this bumpy 
>> and muddy does not do the situation justice. (And they are not picked up by 
>> enough renders/routers, for which we of course do not tag.)
> 
> 
> IMHO surface can still be useful to describe the surface and smoothness to 
> describe the lack of smoothness.
> 
> I'd go for surface=earth and tracktype=grade5 and maybe a smoothness 
> indication (not sure what are currently suggested values, maybe very_horrible 
> ;-) ). When the surface material is soft the unevenness might fix itself with 
> the rain in the next months anyway.
> 
> What do you mean by "unusable by foot"? Is this about getting your shoes and 
> trousers dirty or would you have to climb "artificial cliffs"?
> 
> cheers,
> Martin
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