Originally Posted by
Tennessee Viking
I can see where dmax is coming from. Why should trails be easy enough for the ignorant tourist hiker come and walk on it, crowd it up, and trash it.
Not only do I do maintenance to give back, it can be a great social event and a chance to build muscles & learn some skills. Hardcore & the ATC crews are some of the best social reasons for maintenance. SCA crews learn skills and such.
For the point on the grade and anti-errosion techniques, you can look to the government and ATC. They set standards every so often on how steep of a grade trails can be for national trails. Back when the first trail systems were started, the easiest and quickest way to build trail was to build them straight up and over. After decades of rain, snow, and foot traffic these trails became erroded. So the standards are set that national trails have to meet certain standards for grade and errosion, so trails are now being routed to hillside with easier grades. And in some areas, it only takes one year of neglect before weeds and brush grow over the trail.
I think that forest service trails can get away with this is because if a trail becomes so walkable or erroded, they just close it down and let it grow back in.