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Trail Maintenance Strategies: Tips for Designing Trails for Minimal Upkeep
In an era of shrinking trail maintenance budgets, designing new trails and reshaping existing ones to require minimal maintenance is essential. Trail users from mountain bikers to dog walkers are volunteering their time to maintain their favorite trails for decades to come. The Student Conservation Association, producer of Lightly on the Land: The SCA Trail Building and Maintenance Manual, 2nd Edition, offers a few pointers on how volunteer groups can create long-lasting, sustainable trails.
Location, location, location!
Survey the area thoroughly before beginning! Failure to carefully plan new trails and trail relocations results in more problems, expense, and ultimate frustration than any other aspect of trail work.
Take advantage of south-facing slopes. A trail that catches sunshine during much of the day will lose its snow load earlier in the spring and dry out after storms more quickly than a shaded route. Vegetation may also be less dense on sunny, drier slopes, making construction and long-term maintenance easier.
Consider future maintenance. Siting a trail through heavy brush, loose rock, avalanche chutes, or wet ground will cause future trail crews to think less than kindly of you.
Bypass large trees or rocks that would require removal. Given a choice, put the trail on the uphill side of a large tree. The tree will help stabilize the trail by holding the tread in place. Excavating tread near the downhill side of a tree often requires removal of roots and undermining of the tree.
Stay on ground that drains well and will hold a tread.
Preventing erosion
Before you touch a shovel, first investigate where the water is coming from and how it is reaching and affecting the trail.
Contour the route into and out of drainages so that flowing water will stay in the drainage rather than diverting onto the trail.
Incorporate grade dips into the basic tread design—well-crafted undulations of the tread that will facilitate drainage and enhance aesthetic appeal. They are permanent and almost maintenance free.
Switchbacks, climbing turns, and bridges
Place switchbacks and climbing turns on the rounded faces of ridges. Skirt through the trees at the edges of meadows rather than cutting across open spaces.
Incorporate switchbacks into a route only as a last resort – they are subject to more abuse and require more maintenance than other sections of trail.
Whenever possible, wrap switchbacks around trees, rock outcroppings, or some other natural feature that will stabilize the location of the turn and discourage travelers from cutting across the switchback.
Design trails so that they rely as little as possible on bridges, turnpikes, puncheons, or other structures.
Accommodating trail users, plants, and wildlife
Route the trail to take travelers to scenic overviews, natural features, and other points of interest.
Do not intrude on areas critical for wildlife grazing, nesting or other seasonal activities. Keep trail users and livestock away from lakeshores and stream banks.
Be sensitive to plant communities, locating the trail to minimize disruption of fragile or endangered species.
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