Open space managers urge users to respect muddy trail closures, avoid travel that causes erosion and trail damage.
For Colorado hikers, trail runners and mountain bikers, spring is mud season. Warm sunny periods punctuated by heavy spring snowstorms turn trails in and near the foothills into muddy messes, just when outdoors enthusiasts are fed up with winter and itching to get outside to play.
You probably already want to avoid muddy trails because you don’t enjoy having your boots covered in fetid glop, but Front Range open space managers are practically pleading for you to find other places to hike when trails are muddy. Hiking on muddy trails causes damage to trails through erosion. And, when people walk on drier ground beside muddy trails, single-track trails get widened.
Fortunately, trails usually dry out between storms. Open space managers close trails when they are muddy but reopen them when they can be used without causing damage. Jeffco Open Space, Boulder County Parks & Open Space and City of Boulder Open Space & Mountain Parks all use social media to let users know when trails close and when they reopen.
Hiking and biking on muddy trails can do significant damage to trails, and widen them, as this photo taken in Deer Creek Canyon Park shows. (Mary Ann Bonnell, Jefferson County Open Space)
“There’s two ways to damage the trail,” explained Mary Ann Bonnell, visitor services and natural resources director for Jeffco Open Space. “The primary one is that people try to avoid the mud, go around it, and trample the plant material that’s actually there to help keep the trail from eroding. We want to keep the plants that are growing next to the trail, because if you lose those plants, you can start having the trail crumble down the side of the mountain. You have erosion that erodes the very trail you’re trying to use.”
The other way to damage the trail is by causing deep footprints or tire tracks. Mountain bikes create grooves that allow water to stream down the trail.
“The bike actually creates a channel that water goes down and carries the actual trail surface,” Bonnell said. “So the very thing the trail is made out of is getting carried away in a water event, especially if there is a bike channel.”
Trail damage causes open space managers to spend resources to repair.
“We’ll get deep ruts, and when they dry up and harden, they need to be repaired because they’re hard to walk on — deep ruts, footprints, hoof prints,” said Vivienne Jannatpour, public information manager for Boulder County Parks & Open Space. “It costs money and time to go in and smooth it out.”
In recent years, Boulder County Open Space has been increasingly proactive about closing trails, Jannatpour said, and they were surprised to find a lot of support in the community for doing it.
Read the full article on The Denver Post.
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