Design of ADK Trails.

After doing all my hiking in the CDN Rockies it was pretty hard not to notice that a lot of the trails in the Adirondack High Peaks Region are very difficult and steep, eroded, subject to widening etc. I was told by a prominent 46er trailmaster, not to mention any names that with a couple of exceptions, most of the ADK trails were poorly designed and would remain unchanged. I assume the current trails are the result of the early pioneers' following natural landmarks such as creeks and gulleys or just going straight up the most obvious way. I think it would be a super project to re-design and re-make some of the really bad trails. What are the barriers to such a project? (I know some are on private land and have heard that the ownwers want no trail improvements.) Has it already been tried? Would I be better off forgetting all about it? Could the new trail on Cliff, if it becomes a reality, be used as an example?

Barriers:

no $ for the project.

no $ of graft to be made.

no political hay to be made.

no powerful special interest to satisfy.

(I'd say it's doomed. This is sad but true. I have noticed the same thing about Adk trails.)

Neil said:

Could the new trail on Cliff, if it becomes a reality, be used as an example?

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A good example. It took is a 3 day weekend to go in there and lay it out. THen, it has to be approved by the DEC. This requires several of them to go in with us to walk through it, as well as submitting a map outlining the route. Once approved, the DEC has to request approval from the APA (since the new trail is more than x feet.)

Then we'll go in, and clear out the trail. Now, in this case, since the new trail goes straight through a LOT of floyd blowdown, it'll take a lot of work to clear it out. Note that we did not route the path so that it would be easy to lay out. We routed it so that it would wear best over time, given the lay of the land. It's our bad luck that it happened to go through LOTS of blowdown.

So, this one is going to take over a year. How many more trails? The DEC is pushing us to work on Seymour/Sewards next.

One of the reasons it is taking so long, is that we are a volunteer orginization, and we only have about 30 days a year that we work. If the money would be there to hire someone to do it, it could be done much faster.

We're working on the trailless peaks, according to the UMPs. Since they are in the UMPs, the 'paperwork' with the DEC and APA is relatively easy. If we wanted to do this on some other trail (say the Orebrook trail), a lot more justification would have to be done.

FWIW, I don't think that creation of a new trail should be an easy process. Once created, a trail will stay for a LONG time. Similarly, when a trail is rerouted, the old trail will continue to be used for a LONG time. When we did Tabletop, it took several years before people started using the new one.

When does the work start on Cliff? I can't remember seeing it in the trailwork schedule.

The ADKs wouldn’t be the ADKs without the Bradley Pond and Wallface Ponds trails.

Neil said:

When does the work start on Cliff? I can't remember seeing it in the trailwork schedule.

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Still not approved, so it isn't scheduled. We have to finish Maccomb, first. I don'T even think we got the formal approval for that yet. That'll probably be in the Fall.

Good reference

A great book (the bible) of hiking, trails, and history in the NE, is Guy Waterman's book, .... Ugggh... forget the name now.. Forest & Craig?

All 10,000 pages of it! (no, not that many,, but it is HUGE

lumberzac said:

The ADKs wouldn’t be the ADKs without the Bradley Pond and Wallface Ponds trails.

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Many know this, but for those who done. The trail from the south to Bradley Pond is on private land. The land owner does not seem to want the trail to be improved.

The trail to Wallface Pond? Want to work with me on it on May 28? I'll just be leading a blowdown sweep, though. The mud/water will have to stay. We had a fair sized crew doing 3 full days work there last year, but just sidecutting the overgrown sections. The mud and bogs? It'll take a LOT of work.. I'd estimate that a crew of 6 could spend 2 full weeks. That's a lot of manpower to use on a seldom used trail. If we could get logs for bog bridges dropped in there, we could do it in a lot less time, but that is more money... for a seldom used trail?

Pete_Hickey said:

FWIW, I don't think that creation of a new trail should be an easy process. Once created, a trail will stay for a LONG time. Similarly, when a trail is rerouted, the old trail will continue to be used for a LONG time.

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There has been occasions, that I've been just strolling along in the woods, only to come accross (or realize I'm following) an old trail or, more likey, an old abandoned logging road from decades past. They are, if you pay attention, generally still very obvious (compaired to the woods around them), even if they haven't been on any maps in a LOOOOONG time. It's actually quite cool

There's no reason why old trails should still be followed once the new ones are opened. I've rerouted several trails in the Whites, and once you block the entrances and put up a trail closed sign, usage drops to nothing within weeks.

Rerouting trails on private land is a fairly big process. Doing it with state/fed involvement is a huge hassle, but it can be done. I takes a lot of time, a lot of work, and some compelling reasons.

-dave-

David Metsky said:

I've rerouted several trails in the Whites,

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I'm curious... could you give us a (partial) list of some of the trails you've rerouted and if you can, why they were rerouted.

-Dr. Wu

David Metsky said:

There's no reason why old trails should still be followed once the new ones are opened. I've rerouted several trails in the Whites, and once you block the entrances and put up a trail closed sign, usage drops to nothing within weeks.

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Yes, if you are allowed to put a sign there. It isn'T the case when it is, what the DEC classifies as a 'class II path', which is officially unmaintained, and is not allowed to have signs. When the guidebook says that 'the start of the path is 100 yards past the hight of land....'

We fill in these with blowdown, however some well-intentioned hiker removes the blowdown, thinking he is helping other hikers.

Although Dr_wu was asking about the Whites, in the Adirondacks, we re-route trails most often to avoid bogs and mud.

In the most recent case, we were fortunate enough to get ni touch with the author of the guidebok just before it went to print.

What you say is true of official trails (class II and IV) that we are allowed to mark. It is also true when we reroute a section in the middle of a path. The problem is when we change the starting location.

David Metsky said:

Rerouting trails on private land is a fairly big process. Doing it with state/fed involvement is a huge hassle, but it can be done. I takes a lot of time, a lot of work, and some compelling reasons.

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This 'fight' is only between the state and the landowner. Others are just 'grunts' willing to do the work when/if permission is ever obtained.

One other aspect of this is that there is a very thin layer of organic matter over the anorthosite in the ADK's. The anorthosite is in general non permeable, so that the water stays near the surface after percolating through the soil. (The numerous slides in the adirondacks are a result of this condition.) The result is that even trails with switchbacks are subject to extensive erosion over time. Much more than in the west given the climate. The result is that finding a successful replacement for something like the Orebed trail would be quite difficult. It might require extensive manmade additions which are discouraged.

Trails have improved considerably over the years but the process is gradual because of the extensive work needed to harden a trail. the Van hoevenberg trail for example has gradually been improved with extensive work from the ADK professional trail crew. Similar work over many years has transformed the trail up Ampersand Mtn. But DEC trail funding is quite limited. Every year the amount spent on trail work in Region 5 and 6 by DEC is much smaller than would be spent on a single mile of highway reconstruction.

Pete_Hickey said:

The trail to Wallface Pond? Want to work with me on it on May 28? I'll just be leading a blowdown sweep, though. The mud/water will have to stay. We had a fair sized crew doing 3 full days work there last year, but just sidecutting the overgrown sections. The mud and bogs? It'll take a LOT of work.. I'd estimate that a crew of 6 could spend 2 full weeks. That's a lot of manpower to use on a seldom used trail. If we could get logs for bog bridges dropped in there, we could do it in a lot less time, but that is more money... for a seldom used trail?

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If it were another weekend besides that one, I'd probably say yes. It seemed to me that the worst section of that trail was between Indian Pass Brook and the height of land before you get to Scott Pond. There was a lot of erosion from rainwater there. The boggy parts didn't really bother me, as there were rocks and logs that we could hop to, allowed use to hike right up the middle of the trail. I actually like the challenge of hiking through stuff like that, because you really have to pay attention to where your feet are going.

Hats off to the trail crews, for all the work they are able to accomplish with the little funding that they have.

Sounds like I'd better get back to the Sewards before they are "improved". My last attempt was, shall we say, a bit short of success. The swim was nice though

Although I'm no ADK veteran (15/46), I really enjoy the contrast that they offer when compared to the Whites. Cliff and the Santanonis are fimly etched in my mind as extremely satisfying, though difficult days. I did Cliff and Redfield on the same day and found the recent work on Redfield simply amazing, whereas Cliff was a jumbled mess (a fun mess though!). Such a startling contrast!

I've worked with the Dartmouth Outing Club building several new sections of the AT over Smarts, Cube, Holts Ledge and Moose Mountain, all between Hanover and Moosilauke, plus a few section in VT. This was all due to the gov't push to move the AT to federally owned land, off of private land. In some places the old trails were kept, but mostly not.

On Moosilauke, we've rerouted Gorge Brook, Snapper, and parts of Beaver Brook and the Ridge trail. All these were for erosion problems, the old trails were unsupportable and we wanted to route them to new routes that would last and be easier to ski. There were some sections of Beaver Brook up high rerouted due to federal AT land usage. We also rebuilt the Carriage Road completely, using an excavator and bulldozer, to repair the significant damage from 40 years of neglect and a few well placed hurricanes. We also built the Al Merrill ski loop, but large chunks of that follow old logging roads so it was a pretty easy job.

-dave-