Trail grades and markings, and why your phone fails in rain

Every country on this route marks its trails differently, and the grade written on a signpost means something specific rather than someone's opinion. Both are worth learning before you need them. The grading, which is the part that matters most. The Swiss Alpine Club's scale runs T1 to T6, and it is used well beyond Switzerland: T1 — a well-made path, no danger, walkable in trainers. T2 — still marked, but uneven ground, roots and steeper sections. Proper boots, occasionally a hand for balance. T3 — basic alpine experience needed. Partly exposed with a fall hazard, scree, pathless rocky ground, and sections secured with ropes or chains. T4 — mature alpine experience and familiarity with technical equipment. You leave the visible path. T5 and T6 — climbing skills, specialist gear, glaciers, serious exposure. The big step is from T3 to T4. Everything up to T3 is walking that sometimes needs hands. T4 is not walking any more. I did a T3 without knowing that was what it was. The climb was so steep I went up it on my toes so as not to fall backwards, and part of it I climbed with my hands — there were iron bars and ropes to hold, and ladders. I saw signs for T4 further on and was lucky not to need them. Read the grade before you commit to a day, not while you are on it. The markings, country by country. They change at every border: France — the GR routes are marked with a white stripe over a red one. A bent pair of stripes means turn. A white X over red means wrong way. Italy — red and white stripes, usually with the trail number painted in. Switzerland — colour tells you the grade. Yellow is an ordinary walking path. White-red-white is a mountain path. White-blue-white is an alpine route. Austria, Germany and South Tyrol — the best signposting on the route, often giving altitude, walking times and a difficulty rating at every junction. Slovenia — the Knafelc marker: a white dot inside a red ring. Red signposts at trailheads and junctions list destinations and times. Slovenia was where navigation actually got hard for me, and it was the last country, when I was most tired. There are trails everywhere that fork and do not appear on the map, and it is genuinely difficult to work out where you are. I got lost several times on the final day. I needed a phone with battery to know where to go, which is not a comfortable dependency. Which is the real lesson. Your phone is a navigation system with a failure mode, and the failure mode is rain. When it is raining hard I cannot take the phone out to look at the map without soaking it. So I walk by the signs alone. On day 50 that took me to a town I did not need to go to — luckily near the right one, but it lengthened the route on the worst day of weather I had. Carry enough charge, and know that on the days you most need the map is exactly when you can least use it. GPS lies, sometimes badly. One day mine logged 52 km when I had actually walked something more like 35. Another day it went haywire mid-route. If you are pacing yourself off a live number, know that the number can be wrong. And sometimes there is simply nothing to follow. On one pass we could not find the markings at all and just zigzagged our way up to the col. That happens. It is much less frightening if you already know roughly where the pass is and what it looks like from below. What I would tell someone starting. Learn the grade scale, because it is a real safety tool and it is free. Expect the marking system to change at every border and look up the new one the day before you cross. Keep the phone charged as if navigation depends on it, because it does. And do not assume the map has every trail on it — in Slovenia it certainly does not. Sources. The T1–T6 definitions are the Swiss Alpine Club's published mountain and alpine hiking scale. The waymarking descriptions are the national systems as documented by the European hiking federations and the national clubs. Checked September 2026. Everything about what happened to me is from 2025. Grades describe the terrain in good conditions. Snow, ice, rain or darkness make a graded route harder than its grade.