Perhaps my favorite of all the columns I’ve written in three decades concerns the visitor who complained that New Hampshire’s hiking trails were too rough and that we should smooth them out. Here it is from 2017.
New Hampshire Bulletin, the excellent online-only independent news service, has a story today about maintaining trails that discusses the issue. My story is funnier but theirs is more complete:
“These are old trails that were built before there was any real understanding of erosion,” DeLucia said. “But we know now, like we would never build the trails like that today if we had the opportunity to rebuild them completely.”
“We’ve got some of the highest use in the northeastern region,” he said. “We’ve also got some of the highest amounts of precipitation in the Northeast and then the White Mountain region generally just has very thin soils, and so we add all of these things together … we’re talking about substantial soil loss, a lot of erosion happening, and a lot of impact on our trails, and so many trails are in need of substantial attention.”
Return to the Concord Monitor