Depending on the area, the default nordic skiing practice differs a lot. While in western Europe one can expect a wide area for skating plus tracks for classic style skiing, this is not the case everywhere in the world.
In some regions, the piste preparation is much lighter and the majority of pistes are just signposted crosscountry ski routes for crosscountry touring with extra-large skis.
On OpenStreetMap, we use the tag piste:grooming to describe accurately the various practices.
Yet today (25.06.2022), there is no way to know what kind of gear is well-suited to run 24 % of the nordic skiing pistes already mapped, that is 22’303 km.
This summer, no need to get the snowcat out of its shed, just take your mouse to update the tags on pistes you know !
On Opensnowmap.org, these pistes appears with a dashed pattern from zoom 12, and display a perplexed skier from zoom 15 onward.
You can also find pistes where the piste:grooming tag is no set on a way nor a relation from this overpass query : https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1jEl
[out:json][timeout:90]; way["piste:type"="nordic"][!"piste:grooming"]({{bbox}}) -> .nogroomingway; rel(bw.nogroomingway)["piste:type"="nordic"]["piste:grooming"] -> .groomingrel; way(r.groomingrel) -> .groomingway; (.nogroomingway; - .groomingway;); out geom;
Here is a reminder of the wiki’s definition:
piste:grooming=classic Two rails for classic style nordic.
piste:grooming=classic;skating Wide piste for skating and at least one set of classic rails.
piste:grooming=skating Wide piste for skating (or ‘free’) style nordic.
piste:grooming=scooter Classic style groomed by a smaller snowmobile, which means that the piste is often much looser and single lane.
piste:grooming=backcountry Un-prepared itinerary for cross-country skiing, tracks are made manually by skiers.