# Hikes

**Hikes** is under **Advanced** inside **The guide** in your guide's sidebar. A hike is a way on foot with its line from a GPX or KML file, its time, distance, ascent and descent, and how hard it is. Hikes are optional: a spot you drive or ride up to needs none.

Each hike is an entry of its own, so one hike can go to several spots: a loop past three lakes is one hike that shows on each lake. You make and edit hikes here, or straight from a spot's **Hikes** box; it is the same hike either way, and a change shows everywhere it is used. The places buyers use on the way, stays, transport, food and parking, are [helpers](https://docs.sceniq.earth/guide/helpers.md).

Hikes reach buyers through spots and itineraries. Buyers open a spot's hike list with **Hikes** on the spot's page: it lists every hike that goes to the spot, and the guide map draws their lines. An itinerary shows the hikes it uses as stops of its days, with their numbers. A hike that no spot or itinerary uses stays in the studio.

Everything here is part of the guide: on a live guide, your changes reach buyers when you publish them ([Save, preview and publish](https://docs.sceniq.earth/guide/preview-and-publish.md)).

## The hike list

The list shows your guide's hikes by name. Each row shows the difficulty and grade, the duration, the distance, the ascent and how many spots the hike goes to, as far as they are set. A hike that goes to no spot says **No spot**: that is normal for a day of a multi-day hike.

| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| **New** | Beside the page title: adds an empty hike to the guide at once and opens it in the editor. |
| **Search hikes** | Filters the list by name or start. |

Before the first hike, the list shows **No hikes yet**.

A hike without a name goes by its start, as in "Hike from" the start. Without a start either, the studio lists it as an untitled hike, and buyers see it numbered: Hike 1, Hike 2.

## The hike editor

Opening a hike puts its editor in place of the list. Everything you change saves to the draft automatically shortly after you stop editing; the bar shows the saving status. **All hikes** saves pending changes before returning to the list; if a save fails or a field needs attention, you can stay to fix it or explicitly leave without those edits. The parts below come in the order the editor shows them.

### Line

The hike's line on a map, from a file or a link. Without one, the box offers **Import a GPX or KML file**: pick the file you exported from your planner app. Your browser reads the file; it is not uploaded. Only the line is kept, simplified to at most 500 points that hold its shape.

The import fills the hike's numbers, measured on every point of the file:

- **Distance (km)**, always.
- **Ascent (m)** and **Descent (m)**, when the file has heights. Small ups and downs from GPS noise do not count. Heights that are all zero, which drawing tools write, count as no heights.
- A time estimate in **Duration (min)**, when the field is empty. It counts the distance, the ascent and the descent. Without heights in the file it uses the ascent and descent you typed; with neither it makes no estimate.
- **Start map link**, when it is empty: a link to where the line starts.

A note under the line lists what the import filled. When the file has no heights, it asks you to add the ascent and descent yourself, and the duration when no estimate was made.

A file can hold several lines. Lines that continue one another, such as a paused recording, join into one. Separate lines make the editor ask which one is this hike: it lists each with its name and length. Click one to use it, or **Join all in order** to join them end to end in the file's order. **Cancel** leaves the hike as it was.

**Import from a link** takes the share link of a drawing on map.geo.admin.ch or of a map in Google My Maps: paste it and press **Import** (or Enter). A My Maps map must be shared so that anyone with the link can view it. Links from Komoot, AllTrails and other planner apps cannot be read: the editor shows that app's export steps instead, and you import the file. A Google Maps link to a place or to directions carries no line.

With a line in place, the box shows its shape (a dot at the start, a ring at the end), the file's name and the length. **Replace file** imports another file in its place and fills the distance, ascent and descent again. **Remove** takes the line off the hike.

Buyers see the line on a map on the hike's page, with an elevation profile under it when the line has heights: moving along the profile marks that point on the map. The guide map draws the line too, whenever a spot the hike goes to is on it. Clicking the line shows the hike's name and numbers, with a way into its page.

### Name and numbers

| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| **Name** | The hike's name. Left empty, the hike goes by its start, as the hint under the field shows. |
| **Duration (min)** | How long the hike takes, in minutes. Buyers see hours and minutes. |
| **Distance (km)** | The hike's length. |
| **Ascent (m)** | Meters of climb. |
| **Descent (m)** | Meters of descent. It stays apart from the ascent and is never copied from it. |

The four numbers take zero or more. Anything else shows "Numbers must be zero or more." and autosaving pauses until you fix it.

### Difficulty and Grade

**Difficulty** is one of **Easy**, **Moderate**, **Hard** or **Expert**: how hard the hike is for most people. Click one to choose it, and click it again to clear it. **Grade** is optional: the technical grade as hikers know it, written as you like, such as T3 on the Swiss SAC scale or K4 for a via ferrata.

Buyers read both together, like Moderate · T3, or either alone.

### Start and Getting to the start

| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| **Start** | Where the hike starts, in words, like a trailhead or a station. Buyers see it as a link to a map. |
| **Start map link** | The map link the start opens. Without one, the start opens a Google Maps search for its words. The field also takes links from a few other map sites; any other link is refused when you save, with a message that names the sites. |

**Getting to the start** says how buyers reach the start, one line per way. **Add a way** adds a line. Each line has its **Transport**, one of **Train**, **Bus**, **Cable car**, **Car**, **Boat**, **Ferry** and **Flight**, and a note, called **How to get there** by screen readers: from where, to where, how often. The cross, **Remove this way**, removes a line. A line without a note is dropped when you save. Buyers see the lines under Getting to the start on the hike's page.

### Description

Your text about the hike, at the top of its page.

### Spots on this hike

The spots the hike goes to, numbered in the order it reaches them. Type into the field under the list (**Add a spot to this hike** for screen readers) and pick a spot to add it at the end; the cross on a row, **Remove from this hike**, takes it off this hike. A spot deleted from the guide shows as **A deleted spot** until the hike saves next, which drops it. The hike then shows on each of these spots' planning pages, with its name and numbers, and opens its page from there.

A hike with no spot is still a hike: use it as a day of a multi-day hike in an itinerary (below).

### More

Folded until you open it; it opens by itself when it already holds something. Its summary says what is set, or reads **Equipment, places and sources** while nothing is.

****Equipment**.** **No equipment needed** says that the hike needs no special gear: buyers see None. With the switch off, type each item into **Add equipment** and press Enter or type a comma; the cross on an item removes it. With no items and the switch off, the gear stays unknown, and buyers see no Equipment line at all.

****Places on this hike**.** The stays, transport, food and parking the hike uses, grouped by kind. Tick the ones on this hike. Buyers see each ticked place as a card on the hike's page. The opening hours of the first transport and the first stay also show under the hike's name in a spot's list of hikes.

**New place** adds a place without leaving the hike. Its short form asks for the **Type** (one list for every kind of place, which reads **Choose a type** until you pick), the **Name**, **Open**, **Cost** and **Website**. While **Cost** is empty, it shows an example for the type's kind: **From 120 EUR a night** for a stay, **36 EUR round trip** for transport, **45 EUR per person** for a tour, **Mains from 18 EUR** for a place to eat and **5 EUR a day** for parking. **Create** adds the place to the guide at once, as a [helper](https://docs.sceniq.earth/guide/helpers.md) with the category its type stands for, and ticks it here. **Cancel** closes the form.

****Sources**.** Reference links, one per line. Buyers find them at the foot of the hike's page, each named by its website; a line that is not a link shows as plain text.

### Deleting a hike

**Delete hike**, at the foot of the editor, asks first in **Delete this hike?**: the hike leaves the guide, every spot it goes to and every itinerary that uses it, while the spots and places stay. **Delete hike** in the dialog deletes it, and **Keep hike** closes the dialog. It cannot be undone.

## Hikes from a spot

A spot's **Hikes** box, between Helpers and Links in its editor, lists the hikes that go to it, each with its numbers and, when it also goes elsewhere, the other spots. Clicking a hike, or its Edit, opens this same editor over the spot, titled with the hike's name (**Hike** while it loads); close it to go back. **Link a hike** picks one of the guide's hikes for this spot, **New hike** makes a hike that goes to this spot and opens it. See [Location, hikes and links](https://docs.sceniq.earth/guide/spot-details.md).

## Multi-day hikes

A hike over several days is an [itinerary](https://docs.sceniq.earth/guide/itineraries.md): one day per stage. Set its Getting around to On foot. In each day, add that day's hike as a stop (type its name and pick it, or type a new name and choose **Add "..." as a new hike**), and add the hut or the place you sleep as the day's overnight. Open each stage's hike to import its line and numbers.

Buyers see each day with its hike, its time on foot, distance and ascent, and the whole trip adds them up at the top: like 4 days · 62 km · 4,100 m up.

## The example guide

The example guide's Hikes opens every hike to look at. The fields show their values, with nothing to add, save or delete.