The ASCENT rating system to help people with disabilities navigate natural trails: First look

Extending the dimensions of Universal Access Trails to those with a dirt or grass surface could begin to open countless trails for people with mobility challenges

As captured in previous posts, Kennett Outdoors has been working to help people with disabilities connect with the outdoors in ways that improve their health and well-being. So I am excited to share a first look at a formal rating system in development: ASCENT, or the Accessibility Scale for Characterizing Easier Natural Trails. Pages on our website outline the rationale, including the critical distinctions between Trail Effort and Trail Stress. Here are just a couple of highlights about the development of ASCENT that are not covered on our website.

The overall goal of the rating system is to capture distinctions that can meaningfully help a person with a mobility impairment decide if this trail is a good match given their abilities and goals. I drew on my experience as a psychologist who has helped develop other rating systems to identify the key questions. For example, what observations can a rater easily and reliably make without complex equipment and extensive training? For some dimensions (obstacles, trail width, cross-slope) this is pretty straightforward whereas for others (trail surface) this is harder. And for others (grade changes over longer distances) this is just too complex.

What units of measurement are meaningful? I do not believe that increased precision always improves decision making and justifies the additional effort required. For example, will a 1% difference in cross grade change the decision of a wheelchair user to try navigating a short section of trail? I suspect not, and aim instead to distinguish between a 5-10% cross-grade versus a 10-15% cross grade. As a result, ASCENT relies on 4 overall levels of difficulty relative to the Universal Access (UA) Standard: Meets the standard, Falls just short of the standard, Clearly falls short of the standard, and Clearly exceeds the standard.

Easily and reliably characterizing the difficulty of a length of trail when it can change foot by foot is extremely challenging. We addressed this three ways, always thinking about the kinds of stresses someone with a mobility impairment might tolerate on a hike and the decisions a hiker might make, especially the most important decision: when the safest choice is to just turn around.

• We distinguished between sections less than 10' and greater than 10'. We wanted to capture sections short enough that a hiker still learning to master these would not be overwhelmed.

• We distinguished between sections with one versus multiple sources of stress, since some hikers told us the combination could magnify stress (e.g., a difficult cross slope combined with obstacles for a wheelchair user.

• We only count the first three instances of a potentially stressful trail feature when leaving from a given trailhead. The rationale? If a hiker can tolerate the first three difficult sections, the fourth, fifth, sixth and so one might tax their energy but not represent a hard barrier.

The result is that hikers can use the rating of a given feature to identify the point at which a trail might simply become too hard. By considering how far that feature is from a trailhead, they can then decide if the trail is worth the trip.

Follow us as we continue to refine ASCENT. Once we have finalized the field survey used to capture trail features, we will be looking for park managers and trail designers to test out the system. And we would LOVE to partner with hikers with disabilities to get you feedback - reach out to us anytime!