The Tradeoffs of Trail Work

Appalachia, Winter/Spring 2008

The intent behind trail maintenance has evolved from helping walkers to helping the treadway.

"We are different from the rest of the natural order, for the single reason that we possess the possibility of self-restraint, of choosing some other way."
— Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

  Ready for a pop quiz? The purpose of a bog bridge is

1. Hiker comfort. It’s there so your boots don’t get soaking wet.
2. Hiker safety. By keeping hikers on the trail over many miles, rescues are ultimately decreased.
3. There’s not really any good reason. It’s an example of the lobbying power of the trail work–industrial complex.
4. None of the above.

The answer is number 3. Since AMC Councillor of Trails Charles Blood dug his first drainage on Mount Adam’s Air Line, the power of the trail work– industrial complex has been extensively documented. Okay, that was a lie. The answer is number 4. Most of the readers of Appalachia know that when trail workers install a bog bridge, they’re interested in preventing hikers from tramping around a muddy location, and thereby widening the trail. Keep the hiker on the treadway proper, and the trail will narrow as mosses and other vulnerable plants creep in from the trampled edges. The result is less resource damage, and that, in fact, is the reason we do trail work.

It was not always this way. The intent behind trail work has evolved. Ethan Allen Crawford built and maintained the Crawford Path as a bridle path so tourists could more easily reach the summit of Mount Washington. J. Rayner Edmands’s graded paths in the Presidentials were designed so that ladies in heavy woolen skirts could reach the peaks. However, a significant change occurred with the backpacking boom of the 1960s and 1970s, as erosion took its toll on many New England trails. The response, which played out over a generation, led to the ethic of today’s trail workers, which focuses on protection of the land as the guiding principle of trail work.

Among those of us who have been introduced to the fundamentals of trail work, many of us remember the moment well, quite possibly because we, too, were not so clear about exactly what was transpiring amid the mud, rocks, and bugs. In my own case, it was on the Nelson Crag Trail when, hiking alone, I came across a sign in the middle of the trail. “Yell loudly. Rocks rolling down trail,” it said. I glanced at nearby trees and rocks for the camouflaged lens of Candid Camera. Nothing. I cleared my throat. “Hello?” No answer. I yelled, “Yo!!!”

A grunt came back, “Yeah. Come on up.”

Feigning a casual attitude, I sauntered by, as two mud-covered troglodytes stopped to stare right through me. They were using steel levers to roll boulders right into the middle of the trail. It was, I concluded, a ridiculous thing to be doing. The trail crew looked like they had just eaten their young between rounds of bench-pressing small vehicles and swimming laps in a tar pit. Being college-aged and impossibly cool, I acted as if it were exactly what I expected to see halfway up Mount Washington. The crew didn’t say a word, and it was only later that summer that I learned that those rocks they were adding to the trail were arranged to form a staircase, which both stabilized the thin soil and guided hikers up the mountain. The crew was protecting the land, not adding more granite to an already rock-plagued pitch, as part of some little-known, sadistic backcountry game.

Far fewer people than one might expect possess the fundamental knowledge that trail work’s overriding goal is resource protection. I’ve been amazed at the number of hikers who believe that the primary goal of trail work is to make hiking easier. It’s not surprising to meet such hikers on introductory routes like the Tuckerman Ravine or Champney Falls Trails. But, I’ve also heard such comments from grizzled peakbagging veterans, and on the town paths of my local trails organization, the Randolph Mountain Club, where I serve as trails cochair—and where it seems that every hiker has either written a guidebook, claimed a first ascent, or shared Darjeeling and biscuits with Sir Ed Hillary. The reality is largely the same throughout New England. Ask trail-maintaining organizations what percentage of passing hikers know the rationale for trail work, and you’ll get a discouragingly small number. All of which pose a problem, for with this misunderstanding comes consequent risk. In areas where people’s boots have done enough damage to require repair, trail work requires a tradeoff: workers trying to do conservation work introduce more human intrusion in the name of protection.

To appreciate it and to do it well, hikers and workers must understand exactly what we lose when we build bridges, install ladders and boardwalks, or, for that matter, even structures as relatively innocuous as a rock staircase, a water bar, or a lowly ditch. 

What We Gain
Good trail work protects the land. We now comprehend the remarkable ability of water and Vibram soles to wreak havoc on a trail in short order. Toss in some foot traffic during the sensitive “shoulder” seasons, a bit of heavy use on a straight-up-the-fall-line-switchbacks-be-damned route built a century ago when trampers were fewer, and the challenge becomes an order of magnitude more confounding.

But we’ve figured out how to deal with these problems. We construct water bars and ditches to divert the water, thus minimizing soil loss. Rock steps stop hikers from walking patterns that create wide swaths of trail, and staircases stabilize soils on steep slopes. Bog bridges and sturdy, elevated, mineral soil “turnpikes” keep boots on durable surfaces. Taken together, these strategies protect the land beneath our feet.

Most important, basic maintenance plays a role in erosion control. Blazes, signs, brushed trail corridors, and cairns protect mountain landscapes by keeping the route obvious, even in the foulest of tempests and deepest of snows. By keeping travelers on route, land adjacent to the path is protected. A clear route also minimizes the need for searches and rescues, which can be notoriously damaging to mountain environments—just ask anyone who’s been part of a 20-person rescue crew where their feet land on the bumpy route down as the victim and litter occupy the middle of the trail.

There are other benefits from trail work, too. By caring for the land, we spread an ethic of stewardship throughout the community of trail workers and hikers, and then out to everyone they reach. That understanding ripples out in concentric circles. It travels from person to person, and from backcountry to frontcountry. Consider trail erosion in anything more than cursory depth, and before long, you’ll find yourself discussing forest fragmentation, climate change, development, and sustainability.

… and What Is Lost

If our only goal were to reduce erosion and keep hikers on the trail, a paving crew and guardrails would do the job rather nicely. In moments of frustration, I’ve stared helplessly at eroded gullies with crew leaders, and said exactly the same thing. (Well, not exactly the same thing … but this is a family journal, and my mother might read this article.)

We leave our instant messaging, Barcaloungers, and HBO behind because we are seeking a particular kind of experience, one that connects us to the natural world of which our species was once more intimately a part. We want to feel the mountain breeze on our faces, hear the wind rustling the canopy, and struggle our way over peaks, attaining an experience that cash can’t buy.

Introducing the hand of humans into the wilderness, trail work fundamentall alters that experience. Only the most ornery would claim there is little difference between a paved path and, say, the wild and rugged Castle Ravine Trail.

But doing trail work can take us down a slippery slope, and it takes less than one might think to lose something. The good work of trail maintainers—each bog bridge, staircase, bridge, and step stone—can steadily contribute to the loss of wildness in an area and the challenge in navigating through it. Taken as a whole, a long line of such unintended consequences can lead from a rough, wild, untamed trail to an engineered, carefully manicured one.

H. L. Mencken wasn’t kidding when he said, “For every complex problem there is a simple solution. And it’s always wrong.” Backcountry stewards must think hard as they attempt to integrate what can be conflicting objectives of minimizing erosion and keeping the route passable to preserving wildness and, therefore, adventure.

Add to that, issues of visitor safety, hiker expectations, and managing multiple uses and you start to appreciate why, on less-good days, a few of my friends at the local Forest Service District look like they’re inches away from burying their double-bit axes into the nearest stump and waving the white flag.

A Tale of Two Trails

Let’s go for two hikes—and not in the White Mountains, where many of us have baggage so great we’d happily defend certain paths to the death (Great Gully Trail, anyone?), or disparage them without mercy. (Raise your hand if you’d just as soon never hike the boulder minefield that is the Garfield Ridge Trail again.) Instead, let’s travel to two far-flung paths.

On New Zealand’s South Island, in Fiordland National Park, the 37-milelong Kepler Track travels through some of the most stunning mountain scenery imaginable. Starting in a lush forest of gigantic ferns, the trail gently switchbacks, then wends its way around limestone bluffs to treeline, where it follows alpine ridges for miles through hardy tussocks of alpine sedge. As far as the eye can see, snow-covered peaks emerge through the undercast. Even the most jaded of hikers can’t help but stop and stand in awe of the beauty. Then there is the trail proper, sections of which are crushed gravel, flown by helicopter and compacted by machine. Around those limestone cliffs, the path takes the form of metal and pressure-treated wooden staircases, with signs warning of the cliff hazards. These admirably protect both the resource itself and hiker safety.

One result of such intensive construction is that it’s impossible for your gaze not to be distracted by the nonnative materials and obvious management of the trail. When I hiked the Kepler Track, my thoughts kept drifting away from my surroundings to the role of humans modifying this ribbon of land. A second change is that it’s much easier to hike here than it would be without such heavy-handed trail design. In place of a tricky rock scramble to treeline are steps that could just as easily be in downtown Christchurch. Make no mistake: The trail builders did this work with great care and remarkable skill. Still, I had a lingering feeling that the trail was, in the parlance of trail builders, “overbuilt.” The continuous trail construction, intensive management, and loss of challenge and aesthetics made the Kepler Track much less wild.

In California’s high Sierra country, the John Muir Trail traverses the Range of Light from Yosemite National Park to Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states. On my southbound hike of this route, I stood atop Donahue Pass, my jaw agape as I looked south at the snowcapped peaks, wildflowers, and alpine lakes that would be my afternoon. A northbound hiker reached the pass, laughed knowingly, shook his head, and said, “And it only gets better.” I was certain he was delusional enough to merit a free evaluation once out of the woods. Of course, it was I who was woefully wrong. Incomprehensibly, it somehow did get better.

After a week or so on the trail, we started hearing about Evolution Creek, perhaps the most challenging river of the entire trek to cross. Northbounders talked about it in hushed tones and exchanged knowing glances. In our imaginations, it became a roiling, malevolent tempest that would heave us without a care down to the south fork of the San Joaquin far below, where our last few minutes on earth would be spent clogging the irrigation system of some bewildered Fresno Valley grape farmer.

We read about options and gathered information. I mulled over early alpinist Leslie Stephens, who wrote about the Eiger, “The result of a slip would in all probability have been that the rest of our lives would have been spent in sliding down a snow slope, and that the employment would not have lasted long enough to become at all monotonous.” Would Evolution Creek allow us passage to McClure Meadow, Evolution Lakes, and finally, Mount Whitney’s rocky summit ridge?

Other than requiring our full attention, the crossing was uneventful. A few weeks earlier, though, we would have had to consider a change of plans. For a number of unlucky early season hikers, Evolution Creek marks the end of their treks. We’d heard of more than one tramper who had combined dangerous conditions with poor judgment—with fatal results.

Why am I telling you about this? In contrast to the structures on the Kepler Track, Evolution Creek lies within a designated Wilderness area, the Sequoia and Kings Canyon Wilderness in Kings Canyon National Park. There’s no bridge, and it’s unlikely that there ever will be one.

The Difference Between Kepler and Muir

Though each path passes through dramatic, wild country, Kepler and Muir are, philosophically and physically speaking, polar opposites. The engineering of the Kepler Track has diminished the experience of wildness—significantly.

Unlike other examples of overbuilt trails, this was not a case of a thoughtless act by a misguided manager. New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) has a long history of excellent trails stewardship of one of the world’s most impressive network of trails. The DOC has its own system of grading trails based on who is expected to hike them. The grade, in turn, stipulates the appropriate level of trail work. Here, though, the DOC erred on the side of construction, and much was lost. Clearly, some trail work allowed nontechnical hikers to negotiate the short bands of vertical rock and jumbles of boulders, which present obstacles they would find insurmountable. But along several stretches, the trail surfaces or steps the DOC added weren’t necessary.

It’s not hard to imagine the result, had the DOC considered the heavyhanded work its last resort rather than its first. Novice trampers could still hike the track, but it would be harder, and the risks of using this trail wouldn’t have been engineered out in the name of safety or resource protection. A hiker’s eye would be completely drawn to the natural surroundings rather than distracted by trail work.

The Kepler Track is designed to provide an introduction to long-distance hiking, and in that sense, there is a final irony. Had the trail work been less intrusive and more thoughtfully integrated into the surroundings, it would have truly honored the wild beauty of Fiordland National Park. And that message, to alter the wild landscape only as a last resort, is one from which every novice could benefit.

The Muir Trail is altogether something different—a wild, remote place where fitness, careful planning, and prudent decision making are requisites for safe travel. Though most days were warm and dry, with comfortable hours spent amid alpine passes and old-growth forests, no hiker can avoid risk. Poor judgment carries some very real consequences, even on the relatively placid Muir Trail. Sebastian Unger writes, “The word ‘adventure’ from the Latin adventura, meaning, “what must happen.” An adventure is a situation where the outcome is not entirely within your control. It’s up to fate.” The Muir Trail, in other words, is an adventure.

The Slowly Rising Tide

Herein lies the challenge. In our efforts to maintain trails, well-intentioned trail workers and land managers can slowly, over years, turn Muir Trails into Kepler Tracks. It happens often, and on many of the trails we each care about. Sometimes it’s as simple, clear, and evident as a new bridge spanning a chal-lenging river crossing. Other times, it’s the steady construction of staircases, bog bridges, steps, scree, and drainages.

This loss in the trail experience doesn’t always happen overnight. And in those cases, when it’s an imperceptibly slow change, it’s not likely to draw attention. The process is more akin to the slow rising of the tide, to borrow
a metaphor from the closing pages of Guy and Laura Waterman’s Wilderness Ethics (Countryman Press, 1993): “It is like the tide coming in, first a foot from your toes, then up to your knees, and in a short while over your head. You never saw it move, but you are drowning and there is no more wildness.”

To further complicate matters, every trails organization has felt the continuous prodding from well-intentioned friends to civilize their paths, for reasons other than protecting the land. They argue that doing so makes trails accessible, safe, comfortable, allows hikers of all skills to navigate them, and respects the history of the trail. Let’s consider these points.

Accessibility is a common argument used to justify new trail work. We’re social animals and have been sharing experiences for eons. It’s right to support such opportunities, and our empathetic natures want to help aging or challenged fellow hikers appreciate trails. So, if a few ladders, boardwalks, or bridges will do so, what’s the big deal?

As for safety, a local guide friend of mine points out, we do not head into the backcountry in search of trouble. Risk is simply an inherent challenge we each should manage. Besides, if we wanted danger, we could just as easily stay home and ask a friend to randomly heave rocks through our windows. So, the argument goes, if something can be done to make a trail safer, is that not a good thing?

More than a few hikers argue that comfort should be one of the considerations of trail work. Occasional letters to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy argue for miles of additional bog bridges so that their boots can stay dry. Fortunately, there’s not enough funding in the entire National Park Service budget for that to come true. But, which comment do you think is more likely to be overheard at the ribbon-cutting for a new bridge? “Thank God we’ve protected the fragile riparian zone!” or, “Thank you, it’s so much easier to get across!”

Sometimes, smooth-talking trail crew leaders want to do trail work that shows off their skills. (I know this for a fact, having tried this myself It works admirably!) In their zeal to accomplish great trail work, trail crews, trail supervisors, and volunteers look for opportunities to use their specialized abilities, whether in the construction of a staircase, a bridge, cairns, step stones, bog bridges, or other structures. But trail skills are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. With each project, we need to take a serious look inward and evaluate our motives.

Finally, trail managers cite history as a rationale for rebuilding damaged backcountry trails and structures. We honor the legacy of our backcountry predecessors by preserving their good works. But is it not also possible to change course, to consider that we might have developed more insight and perspective than the predecessors who built a structure or path? What was considered farsighted in one era might well be outdated in another. Hearing, “it’s always been there” can sometimes mean there are no other good arguments left.

These rationales, and others, frequently come up without consideration for what is lost when workers make a seemingly small change. All parties involved—professional and volunteer trail workers, nonprofit organizations, and government agency land managers—must protect the spirit of wildness on our trails, just as we now work to prevent erosion. 

Seeking a Better Balance

In the spring of 2005, heavy rains arrived early to the White Mountains. Mountain streams that were not yet clear of the winter’s thick mantle of ice became raging tumbles of water and ice.

When the skies cleared, the White Mountain National Forest had lost eleven hiking bridges. They ranged in size from smaller structures, spanning the likes of the Snyder River in the Northern Presidentials, to the 80-foot long, Spider Bridge over the Wild River.

What was interesting following this particular storm, however, was how the White Mountain National Forest managers reacted. Instead of assuming that each structure would be replaced, they first asked, “Do we need to replace it to adequately protect the resource?” And, “What values are being negatively affected if we rebuild?” “Could something be gained by not replacing some of these bridges? Might those gains possibly outweigh the losses?”

In the end, the land managers of the White Mountain National Forest replaced five bridges, leaving the other crossings a bit more wild, a bit more challenging and, yes, a bit more prone to erosion on their banks. It was one small victory in the name of enlightened stewardship of our wild areas.

The White Mountain National Forest decision is representative of what I hope is a new era of enlightenment. We must learn to ask what it is we seek to accomplish through trail work. Trail work keeps open routes through wild landscapes, but equally important, it protects those vulnerable landscapes. Low on the priority list is making hikers comfortable. The work must balance safety with the intrusion of human-made structures. If the work is done with the honest intent of caring for the land, might we still be able to accept, say, a few feet of stream bank erosion, in the name of preserving a wild and challenging river crossing—the Evolution Creeks that make for vivid memories, years after our boots have dried?

We must stand up and act when the opportunity arises to protect wildness with less trail building. In doing so, we will prevent the incremental loss of the spirit of wildness and will pass an ethic of thoughtful trails stewardship to the next generation.

Doug Mayer lives in Randolph, New Hampshire, with his trail-weary lab, Chloe. He is trails cochair for the Randolph Mountain Club and on the board of the Waterman Alpine Stewardship Fund. He works for the National Public Radio program “Car Talk.”

This story appeared in the Winter/Spring 2008 issue of Appalachia.