Mountain mapping

It has been proposed that this page or section be merged with Hiking. (Discuss)

Contents 1 Transport network 1.1 United States 2 Mountain informations 3 Forests, lakes, and surface 4 Farming activity 5 Rocks, cliffs, scrambles 6 Techniques

Transport network

Any roads in the area should be added, including highway=track for 4x4 routes, driveways, and farm tracks. Parking spots should be marked with amenity=parking; consider adding the number of parking spaces available if it's small.

Hiking trails should be marked, with highway=path for paths, highway=bridleway for horse routes, and highway=cycleway for cycle routes. Tagging related to mountainbiking can be found on the Mountainbike portal. Add trail details using name=* if known, and ref=* if it's a numbered route in some network.

Note: new tags may be required for some aspects of mountain trails not covered in existing tags - please propose new tags as necessary

Ski routes are marked with their difficulty level, see OpenPisteMap for details. Ski lifts and cable cars are also detailed on that page.

United States

Mappers in the US should also refer to United States roads tagging.

Mountain informations

Mountains can be named using natural=peak with name=*

Spot-heights if known, are ele=metres above mean sea level

Roads or paths that go across a pass can be tagged with mountain_pass=yes (see Proposed_features/Pass)

See also Proposed features/Mountains

Forests, lakes, and surface

Forests can be seen on aerial photos and marked with natural=forest for dense forests, or natural=wood for sparse ones. Lakes are natural=lake

Surface types can be described using

• natural=scree
• natural=scrub
• natural=fell
• natural=fell
• natural=bedrock
• natural=marsh
• natural=glacier

Industrial activities are often seen in mountain regions; some example tags are:

• landuse=reservoir
• landuse=quarry

Farming activity

Rocks, cliffs, scrambles

Rock faces can be tagged with natural=cliff, but the details are still under discussion

sport=climbing may be considered for popular climbing areas

Tagging schemes have not been created for climbing and scrambing routes yet; please propose as necessary.

Techniques

Note: this section has not been widely tested; please update it as you find techniques which work well in mountain areas

• Height data from Relief maps will probably be one of the primary sources of information on mountain terrain
• Triangulation of distant points
• Satellite photographs to get forests and lakes