Tourism Geographies, Vol.1, No.3, pp. forthcoming (return to Table of Contents for Vol.1)

ENVIRONMENT

Energy equivalent as a measure of the difficulty rating of hiking trails

M.Leon Hugo
Dept. of Geography and Centre for AfrikaTourism, University of Pretoria, Republic of South Africa

Abstract

A tourist visiting an area or participating in an activity presupposes some form of prior knowledge. The better the information, the easier the prospective tourist will respond positively to participation. In order for prospective hikers to decide whether they will embark on a hike, requires prior knowledge of the environmental conditions, the type of overnight accommodation, conditions of the trail itself and, perhaps more importantly, the anticipated degree of trail difficulty. Lack of information often leads to failure to overcome the inertia factor resulting in many hiking trips never being realised. On the other hand hikers often embark on hikes that do not satisfy their expectations or attempt hikes that are too strenuous for them to complete, giving rise to negative publicity for hiking and the tourism industry in general. It is argued that attempts to evaluate trails on the basis of their inherent quality is too subjective to for an effective grading system. The best way to foster participation in any one particular trail is to describe the trail as scientifically as possible and then allow hikers to decide for themselves whether they would like to undertake the trail. It is further argued that trail difficulty can be scientifically measured. Based on physical laws and laboratory experiments it is shown that the Energy Equivalent (EE)-value of any trail can be determined from a topographical map. Once all trails in a country or region have been graded, they can be ranked and grouped into difficulty classes, making it easy for prospective hikers to choose a trail within their capability range.

Keywords: trail assessment, difficulty grading, recreation planning, map analysis