Care and Repair of Trails

Care

A few simple guidelines can go a long way toward preserving trails and the forests that contain them from undue wear.

The most important rule is to stay on the trail. Forests are surprisingly fragile when it comes to human abuse. If you've been on many trails you've probably seen what happens when people walk or ride around mud puddles. The trail expands into a doughnut, where the puddle is the hole. The next step is for the puddle to expand into the newly trodden earth, and for folks to trample beyond that. In theory, an entire forest could be trampled from a single puddle. So what do you do? In order of preference, you:

Avoid trails that are likely to be muddy.
Turn around and find another route - and inform a trail maintenance crew of the problem.
Go through the middle of the mud puddle (where the bottom is likely to be firmer than toward the periphery) - and inform a trail maintenance crew of the problem.

Another common obstruction is fallen trees on the trail. Fallen trees present obstacles that range from an opportunity to bunny hop to completely blocking and obscuring the trail. If you can't get past the tree without straying from the trail, find another trail. The temptation is to bush-whack, creating or reinforcing a detour around the fallen tree. Resist this temptation. It increases human encroachment into the forest, further disrupting the ecosystem and it increases erosion.

Remember that rule number one is stay on the trail. This is also true when there are no obstructions. Try to keep your wheels on the dirt, avoiding the green vegetation to the sides of the trail. Sometimes the trail is very narrow, providing an opportunity to improve your riding skills.

The number two rule is don't encourage erosion. This could be seen as even more basic than rule number one, because vegetation helps prevent erosion, and staying on the trail preserves vegetation, thereby helping to prevent erosion. In any case, the thing bicycles can do that speeds erosion most is skidding. When you skid, your knobby tires scrape the top surface of dirt away, exposing a less densely packed (more fragile) layer which is more likely to erode in the next rain. You may also create a rut that will concentrate the rain runoff, significantly increasing erosion.

Many web sites address the issue of erosion. A few are:

Final Report: Treading Lightly! (GIS 12, Mark Winkelaar/James Dawson, Utah State University, Department of Geography and Earth Resources, June 2, 1995) - this is an academic study with photos and other documentation. Because the entire report is on a single page, it is slow to load, but you can read it while the pictures are loading.
Minimizing Impact of Mountain Bikes on Single-Track Trails - this is a page on the web site of Roger McGehee, an avid mountain biker. It clearly identifies the main issues. Roger's web site also contains other pages of interest to mountain bikers.

Repair

Trees that have fallen on the trail should be cut back to allow clear passage by all trail users. (If equestrians use the trail, be sure to provide sufficient height of clear space.) If a chainsaw is required to cut a tree in a National Forest, a USFS certified sawyer must do the cutting. (Check with your maintenance crew leader about opportunities to become certified.)

Mud is a perpetual problem in many areas of the world. Draining a mud puddle is a big help. If possible, create a channel from the puddle to a nearby, lower area (off the trail!). If the puddle is large or a river is near, use some sort of runoff control.

Occasionally it is not practical to drain a puddle (usually because the surrounding terrain is higher than the puddle). In this case, if there is standing water, let it dry or drain it with buckets, shovels or whatever, then dig the mud out, leaving a hole of firm dirt. (Scatter the mud so that it is not an ugly pile.) Fill the hole in with good dirt and pack it as firmly as you can. Note: putting fresh dirt on the existing mud will merely turn the new dirt to mud as well.

Brambles and prickers should be cut back sufficiently that they not only won't scratch your legs and arms, but so that they won't do so next week either!

Erosion is caused by water, wind and traffic. Wind erosion is slowed by wind barriers such as trees and shrubs. Water erosion occurs from rain drops striking exposed dirt and from water flowing along exposed dirt. A canopy of leaves significantly reduces raindrop erosion. Flowing water erosion is reduced by getting the flowing water off the trail as quickly as possible. On a long downhill section of trail, frequent water bars to detour water off the trail help. The techniques described for runoff control all apply here.

Building new trails is not something to be undertaken lightly. Mountain Bike Magazine ran an article describing the process a few years back.

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