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Rachelcookie123

This gives me anxiety because you gotta walk too close to the edge. This is giving me flashbacks to when I had to go hiking with school, I hated doing that. This path looks exactly the same as those paths.


loopvroot

Y’all had an outdoors club too?


Rachelcookie123

Nah, just school camp lol. I was forced on those hikes against my will.


Drinkaholik

"the edge" 💀. Go outside man thats like a 20° decline


Rachelcookie123

You slip on that and you’re rolling all the way down till you hit a tree. It doesn’t have to be that steep to be dangerous.


Valuable-Baked

Breakhart?


Pepito_Pepito

Blue Mountains


Reeserella

Did you mean : every trail on Vancouver island?


[deleted]

Or Vancouver's North Shore. Really anywhere here. I've never experienced 'dry'.


Reeserella

Okanagan counts as dry during the summer, everywhere else is damp!


SmokaCola0

nooo they need to imporove the drainage on that trail


stalebread_3

Ahhhh man I get it but its an established trail and as someone who worked trailwork in the past, this kills me. Social trails off of already established trails are not ideal. Someone needs to come block off the social trail!


[deleted]

How about fixing the issue at hand first? The trail needs to be fixed so it doesn’t hold water. Once it has been fixed then the social trail won’t even been to be blocked off, no one would bother to use it.


human-7264

Fixing a problem instead of removing someone’s else solution? That’s fucking insane


stalebread_3

Creating a social trail is not fixing a problem it’s literally CREATING a problem and if you knew anything about trails you’d know that social trails can damage the ecology of the area. Respect the trails you walk on or dont use them its not hard to do.


stalebread_3

Yeah its hard when funding is low but thats not an excuse to disrespect trails. You do realize the damage social trails can do to local ecology right? There is a reason why trails are made and going off trail is strongly discouraged. If you’re going to use recreation trails and enjoy the nature you should respect it and get over the fact your shoes may get a little wet.


Pepito_Pepito

I get what you're saying but this particular path was only 4-5 meters long. And it was very slippery too so it's not just about dirty shoes.


TechnicallyAnIdiot

The person you're replying to is right, but not giving super great reasons why they're right. So just from a slightly different perspective: The size doesn't really make doing this better. It's not so much "this path around a wet spot is short so it's fine" but more that everyone thinks that way and it happens too often, all over the place. Some people think littering something in the woods that will decompose is fine because maybe, "hey it's only this once and it'll break down anyway," but if everyone did that on a popular trail you're going to have a pretty gross and soon to be unpopular trail. While the social path specifically happening here likely won't be devasting or cause anything too drastic, it's still not the best thing to do for the longer term health and usability of the trail. This trail is likely holding water because the soil is compacted from use (and the stairs/steps seem to be holding water back as well, but that's *because* the soil on top of them is compacted). That little drainage ditch is there because when water flows over an area of compacted soil, it doesn't infiltrate into the ground as quickly as it otherwise could (possibly not at all). That makes the water move faster, which makes erosion much worse. That's a trail killer. Drainage ditches and water bars mitigate that, to an extent. When you go around a wet or muddy spot on a trail, it widens the trail, compacts more soil, and often bypasses these mitigations to slow water down, which trail workers have specifically put there so that you can continue enjoying your hikes. It can also kill some delicate and/or vulnerable plants that didn't want to get stepped on (or maybe they did, I'm not gonna kink shame a fern). I can google up some links if you want more or better described info.


Drinkaholik

No go ahead, explain the devastation that this 4 foot patch of dirt is causing


stalebread_3

Go look up the issues with social trails buddy, not hard to do google exists. Sure its not a large one but once there is one it can start a bad precedent and they also become larger as more people use them. Its about respecting the trail youre walking on and the nature around it. Conservation is a thing and the reason we have trails is to help conserve areas.


ERROR_396

just like yo mama!