Beauty

Beauty is, unsurprisingly, an essential ingredient. Marks are allocated as follows:

40 Unsurpassable
36 Outstanding
32 Very beautiful
30 Beautiful
28 Very attractive
24 Above average
20 Averagely attractive
16 Below average

Only a few of the Top 100 walks score less than "beautiful" (i.e. 30/40), and they make it into the Top 100 because of their strong human interest.

The status of mountains is ambiguous: while a mountain view is everyone’s cliché of beauty, they can in fact be harsh, gloomy or forbidding: George Mallory, that great mountain lover, wrote from Tibet (admittedly after his first unsuccessful attempt on Mt Everest) “on what a day to be writing to England, while one sees here nothing but inimical snows and the endless debris of giant rock masses”.

Natural interest

Natural interest can include physical features such as mountains, volcanoes, gorges and lakes as well as animal and plant life.

Marks assume that a walker is interested in natural things, but not a specialist or obsessive, and are allocated as follows:

20 Unsurpassable: could not get more interesting
18 Outstandingly interesting
16 Exceedingly interesting
15 Very interesting
14 Decidedly interesting
12 Above average
10 Averagely interesting
  8 Below average
  5 Little natural interest
  0 No natural interest

Again, mountains are an oddity: there are a lot of them in the world, so they are not that unusual, but they are inherently interesting. As a result, most significant mountains – no matter how large – score between 14 and 16 in this category.

Another tricky issue is where there is some unusual, interesting aspect – a rare plant or shy animal – which is around but which you are unlikely to see. Some weight is given to its presence, but marks are accorded on the assumption that a walker will not see the thing concerned, so the interest aroused will have some limitations.

Human interest

Human interest includes unusual people and ways of life, as well as historical, mythical, religious, literary and artistic associations. Human interest can include history, atmosphere or romance, even though there may not be many (or any) physical evidence to be seen: Tash Rabat is an example. High scoring walks include the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall, the koras (sacred circumambulations) of Tibet, the holy mountains of China, the Inca Trail, Petra and Angkor.

Marks assume that a walker is interested in the “human” world, but not a specialist or obsessive, and are allocated as follows:

20 Unsurpassable: could not get more interesting
18 Outstandingly interesting
16 Exceedingly interesting
15 Very interesting
14 Decidedly interesting
12 Above average
10 Averagely interesting
  8 Below average
  5 Little human interest
  0 No human interest

Human interest is in some ways the most controversial category. Those with a predilection for solitude may view "human interest" as insignificant (or even a negative) factor. For many others, exceptional “human” factors enhance a walk. Our system, in which isolation enhances beauty and negative marks are given for crowding, achieves the best available balance: most would agree that strong "human interest" adds to a walk's attractions, while crowds detract. Wandering in the poet’s footsteps, but lonely as a cloud, can be the best of all worlds.

There is, of course, further complexity in deciding what sort of human presence is valuable. Picturesque mountain folk or pilgrims, good: sweaty westerners in baseball caps, bad – but for whom? Deciding what are interesting people and ways of life has to involve distinctions which may be relativist and controversial in theory, but do not encounter much resistance in practice: typical dwellers in modern cities and developed countryside are relatively dull, whereas unusual people and ways of life, including undeveloped parts of (for instance) Europe, tend to be interesting.

Human interest is also controversial because it is the most variable of all the categories, and thus significantly affects the walks' rankings. There are many "humanly" interesting walks which rank above more beautiful walks, for instance, the Mt. Kailash Kora and the Inca Trail, which beat (or match) the Anapurna Sanctuary and the Grand Canyon.

Charisma

While hard to define, you know charisma when you encounter it, and all the best walks have it in abundance. While it usually accompanies beauty and natural or human interest – none of the Top 100 walks scores less than 28 for charisma – it is a separate attribute that does not necessarily correlate to these other factors.

Marks are given as follows:

40 Unsurpassable: could not get more charismatic
36 Outstandingly charismatic
32 Exceedingly charismatic
30 Very charismatic
28 Decidedly charismatic
24 Above average
20 Averagely charismatic
15 Below average
10 Little charisma
  0 No charisma

Negatives

There can, of course, be unpleasant aspects to walks which require adjustments to the final score, if a true view of the experience is to be given. The measure is how much a factor would reduce a reasonable person’s enjoyment of a walk. We can confirm from bitter experience that a stupendous view seems less so while hunched with an altitude-induced nauseous headache in a bitter, soaking gale. The most common of these problems are altitude, which can cause headaches, sickness, sleeplessness and much, much worse, and an excess of other visitors.

With altitude, we subtract marks according to how high you will sleep, as follows:

We adjust this further to reflect any particularly high passes that are crossed during the day (although the availability of a pony for someone whose legs give in is a mitigating factor), the length of time spent at altitude and the opportunities to gain some acclimatisation before reaching the relevant altitude. Altitude can affect people in very different ways, so we have tried to reflect the impairment of the enjoyment that a moderately susceptible person will experience.

Deductions for crowding are difficult: a throng of people can affect the beauty and charisma of a place, so when giving negative points for this one needs to avoid double reductions for the same factor. Crowds can undermine the point of going somewhere (the noisy backpackers on top of Uluru spring to mind), but can be essential to the experience of other places – the crowds of extraordinary Tibetan pilgrims walking round the Barkhor Kora in Lhasa are essential to the magic and excitement of the place – so any adjustments must be sensitive to this. For this purpose, we have adopted the outlook of a person who is not allergic to other people – misanthropes will not care for some of these walks – and who appreciates crowds where they are part of a walk's magic, but whose enjoyment is generally reduced by meeting more than a few people during a day's walking. There is a difficult point of cultural relativity here: to the typical westerner, a crowd of pilgrims on a Tibetan kora, or even local sightseers on top of a sacred mountain in China, can have its own interest, whereas a crowd of tourists in Venice or on the edge of the Grand Canyon detracts from the experience.

While trekking out into the wilderness with a tent for a few days is wonderful, long hikes with no chance to replenish supplies and thus carrying heavy packs becomes less fun for most people, and more a specialist occupation. Minus marks are thus given for walks of this sort.

We assume that you will tackle a walk at a suitable time of year, so bad weather is not taken into account unless it is likely to affect your walk, whenever it is undertaken – i.e. a regular feature.

Difficult access or an unpleasant atmosphere are also problematic. Wonderful walks are often in remote places, so this is not generally a factor. However, the fact that a walk is in an inherently dangerous place (Ethiopia) or an unpleasant one (North Korea) does affect the enjoyment of a walk, and this is reflected with minus marks.

If a normal person would find a walk frightening as a result of sustained dangers such as narrow, unstable paths on sheer cliffs, this would incur negative marks.

All these negative factors can of course change over time.