[at-l] Leki Damage---

[RoksnRoots@aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

In a message dated 2/11/02 11:05:46 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
lwbooher@halifax.com writes:


> The center is pounded
> down from the hikers' feet sufficiently that it may never erode.


    ***   As an "in the dirt" maintainer for many years, I have to qualify 
this. True, there are some well-compacted places where the hardened trailbed 
doesn't wash out easily. But this is the exception. Those places are few and 
tend to exist where optimal conditions allow like flat areas or low-use 
remote sections. If what you are suggesting were true, the Smokies section 
would not be 4 feet deep but would be hardened and uneroded, right? But let's 
not descend into Trail-neurosis. The Trail will erode from normal use and 
will need to be fixed at some point. At this point, I don't think the 
question is whether or not the Trail is eroding, but what is going to be done 
about it... 



> 
> The Natchez Trace is an example of a pounded down trail.  It didn't become
> sunk in from erosion.  It is sunk in from the continual pounding use.  The
> same is true of the western pioneer trails.  You can still see them after
> all these years.  They didn't erode.
> 

    *** Western trails have different geography, terrain, winters, snowpack, 
melt-off, summer rains, soil base, soil type, construction, strengthening for 
horse-use, etc.. Whatever caused the "pounding in" is erosion, no matter how 
you describe it. Eastern trails generally have a post-glacial surface layer 
bound by deciduous clay from ages of eastern forest decay. This and temperate 
rainfall combines to cause a different type of erosion than out west. The 
ancient carriage roads off the AT in Harriman are still well-washed out and 
visible even 200 years after their abandonment...


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