[pct-l] Why California’s Trails Are Disappearing From Our Maps

[Dan Engleman]

I hiked the entire PCT in 2011 and I was amazed at how well maintained the trail was. Some parts of the trail were better than others, but hiking the whole trail gave me an overwhelming sense of gratitude for those who donate their time, skills, and sweat to build and maintain the PCT.  

I hiked the Mission Creek area, in the off season, prior to my thru hike and it was a bit challenging with all the brush and stream crossings, but when I did my actual hike it was a piece of cake thanks to the efforts of the volunteers in this area.  I was also blown away by the extraordinary trail maintenance in the Tehachapi area and most especially by the work that had been done in the Glacier Wilderness area where hundreds of blow downs had been "magically" sawed in huge chunks and had been rolled out of my weary way ....  

I ran into trail crews in California, Oregon, and Washington and made it clear that they were the heroes of the PCT, not those trying to hike from end to end.
I would be very surprised to see the PCT become a trail that "no one knows was there" ... as suggested in the article above .... 

711 



On Saturday, January 25, 2014 10:07 PM, Ken Murray <kmurray at dr.com> wrote:
  
Thanks for the shout-out. It's also in the Fresno Bee:http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/01/24/3731294/were-losing-our-sequoia-trails.htmlKenInformative article outlining how and why we are losing our Wilderness trails published Jan.24, 2014: http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/01/24/why-californias-trails-are-disappearing-from-our-maps/ideas/nexus/ Quoted snippet from the article: "...Most trails require work every year, or they deteriorate. But such maintenance doesn’t always happen. Two years ago, I led a crew to repair a portion of the remote Pacific Crest Trail, which had gotten no attention in almost a decade. This is one of our great national scenic trails, yet it took my crew of 15 two hours to find it. It was so terribly overgrown that it took 30 days of work over a three-year span to clear just a few miles of trail. This sort of thing is not just a labor of love but also a labor of public health. Trails need maintenance not only because people
 wish to travel in the wilderness, but also because poorly maintained trails erode the watershed, diminishing the quality of water in Central Valley cities. Volunteers, of course, can do only a small part of this work. At least that has been the standard thinking. But now, there are only volunteers. With no one else chipping in, we don’t merely lose access to trails. We lose trails altogether. The trails are organized into a system, and “system trails” are required, by law, to be maintained. But when trails can’t be maintained, as is the case now, the government complies with the law by “decommissioning” poorly maintained trails from the trail system. And decommissioned trails literally disappear from maps. One of the best mapmakers for the Sierra, Tom Harrison, tells me that Forest Service personnel regularly instruct him to remove trails from his maps. Eventually, no one knows the trail was ever there...."
_______________________________________________
Pct-L mailing list
Pct-L at backcountry.net
To unsubscribe, or change options visit:
http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l

List Archives:
http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/
All content is copyrighted by the respective authors. 
Reproduction is prohibited without express permission.