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One to five stars, and what happens when you pick a low one.
A rating is a single score out of five. Anyone can leave one — you do not need an account, and the end of trail mode is where most ratings happen.
The hike page shows the average and how many people have rated it, for example a star, 4.8, and "30 ratings". Nothing is shown until someone has rated. Logged in, a separate row labeled "Your rating" holds your own stars; it is not the average. Once you have rated, it shows the date you rated.
Tap the star. That is the whole interaction. You are not asked anything else.
A low score asks one follow-up: what was wrong? You pick from a short list — bad routing, missing stops, unclear instructions, inaccurate history, a problem getting access, or simply boring — and there is an "other" box for anything not on the list.
Those reasons are not public. Nobody browsing the hike sees them. They go to whoever maintains the hike, and to site admins, gathered into a summary that reads like "3 said bad routing." The public page shows only the average and how many people have rated.
Logged in, you can add a note for future hikers under your stars. It saves when you tap away from the box, and you can remove your rating from the same spot. Notes are public: they show under "Trail reports" on the hike page with your name, and like everything else you add, they're shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. The "what was wrong" reasons above stay private.
If you are logged in and you walk a hike again, you can leave a fresh rating six months after your last one. The page shows the date it opens up. Only your most recent rating counts toward the average, so re-rating replaces rather than stacks. Before six months are up you can still edit the rating you left.
Ratings left without an account are tied to a pseudonymous identifier for your browser session, not to you. It exists so one visitor cannot rate the same hike repeatedly, and so obvious automated abuse can be pulled. We never store your IP address or browser details in readable form.