I read that in a nature book, but it didn’t explain why. It mentioned something along the lines that campers and hikers need to pay attention to natural landmarks because they should never make their own.
The ideal is you leave no trace of your passage. Many of the ways hikers use to mark trails are damaging to the environment.
So the US Marshals can’t catch you?
If you’re on a trail, there’s no need to mark anything.
If you’re not on a trail, you should practice Leave Not Trace. http://www.lnt.org/ There’s no need to mark your way, navigation doesn’t rely on making permanent markings. A compass or GPS doesn’t require it. But leaving marks changes the terrain for the next person who comes through, degrading the wilderness.
For practical reasons, whatever you mark will become a defacto trail and concentrate traffic in places that haven’t been hardened. Your trail may not go where people want to go, leading to people getting more lost than if there were no trails. Most people don’t know where they are going, and you’ll end up with lousy trails blazed through sensitive areas.
To sum up, there’s no reason to mark anything. And lots of good reasons not to.
This is interesting – I had not heard of this before. I was just looking through my old Boy Scout Handbook, which gives information about how to leave signs in the wilderness (for “Turn Right”, “Turn Left”, etc.) I have seen such signs on hiking trails when I lived out in Utah, and I se them in the White Mountains on the trails. I’d never heard of this movement before. How old is it?
How are these signs "damaging to the environment? The Boy Scout signs for woodland and grassland are simply sticks laid out and knotted grasses, nether of which last very long. In stony areas the signs are small piles of stiones, which DO last longer, but I can’t see as at all damaging (these are the markers I’ve seen – the others don’t last long enough).
Many “wilderness” areas would look more like picnic grounds if effort wasn’t made to minimize evidence of all the people passing through. In lots of older camping and wilderness survival guides there are methods that were used by frontiersmen that would be too destructive today given the press of civilization. Virtually anything involving the indiscriminate use of fire or cutting trees for example.
LNT started in the early 70’s. It’s pretty well adopted now, although there are some aspects of LNT that aren’t well accepted (like avoiding bright clothing). But the idea of making no permanent marks in the Wilderness is extremely well accepted.
In grasslands, those type of markings wouldn’t be considered permanent. Cairns (small piles of rocks) are more of a concern. Wilderness (with a capital W, federally designated Wilderness) is not supposed to have any permanent markings except as needed. First, there’s rarely a need to mark a trail except in an emergency. Why would you need to mark a trail? Second, marking trails leaves the area in a different state than before. Trails tend to get followed by multiple parties. The goal in Wilderness is to disperse traffic to avoid trails getting established. Third, multiple people leaving multiple trails leads to confusion. Finally, when I go there I’d like to find the area the same as when you got there. Otherwise these small changes build up over time and the area is degraded.
In the White Mountains of NH you will rarely see markings on anything but established trails. People leave arrows and stuff in the dirt and with sticks on trails, and they shouldn’t, but that’s not a big deal. If they were to venture into the Pemi or Great Gulf Wilderness and do that off trail it would be a much bigger deal.
well, in many places I’ve seen cairns there isn’t an easily-recognized trail – such as when the intended trail crosses a broad expanse of rock, and it’s not clear where you’re supposed to go. Sometimes there are several turns before you get to a more traditional “beaten-down” trail that needs no signs.
The Boy Scouts now practice “Leave No Trace.” In fact a new troop level position is being created, effective Jan. 1, 2010: the “Leave No Trace” Trainer.
My son’s Scout book dates from 1998, but they just came out with a new 2010 edition. I’m curious if the newer books still have that info regarding trail markers.
In any event, in general there are two guidelines to follow:
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If a trail already exists, which is typically the case for popular hiking area (such as the White Mountains) it’s best to keep people on the trail. This keeps people from trampling the whole wilderness. Up in the Alpine Zone of the White Mountains, this is particularly important because it is above the treeline, and the vegetation that does (precariously) exist is slow-growing and very sensitive. If people departed the trails marked by the cairns, all of this vegetation would be trampled and killed in a very short period of time, increasing erosion.
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Conversely, if no trail exists, typically the case in more remote, less trafficked areas, it is best not to create a trail. Trails are inherently destructive. The repeated foot traffic compacts the ground and kills the vegetation. In a popular area, it is better to concentrate the damage on marked trails, but in the remote wilderness, why create a trail if you don’t need to? For this reason, if Scouts are on a trail in the woods that crosses through a meadow, they are instructed to spread out in the meadow and not follow each other so that a trail is not created.
A good woodsman will pay close attention to all landmarks available to him/her.
There are a lot of less than good woodsman and they tend to make a mess of things.
Ever seen what a 2 way trail looks like blazed with a hand axe?:eek:
I would recommend marking a trail if unfamiliar with being in the bush and must come back same route, but the markings should be removed on way back.
I enjoyed a story (not word for word) about Daniel Boone being asked if he was ever lost. He was puzzled about that and answered that he may have been disoriented and a week or two off course, but never lost.
I believe that comes from being at home where you are and not making a big deal about having the roof over ones head at night.
Here in MN (State land) making a trail is ok if one is setting out a deer stand. There can be a 50 ft wide snowmobile trail that we can not use with a wheeled ATV but we can clear a new trail through the same area. Makes no sence, but that’s the law
Then is some places hunters/hikers are asked to pack out TP!
In addition to some of the things mentioned, I would suspect there would be merit to not having your means of naviagation be disturbed by others. A mountain or even large boulder isn’t likely to move, anything you can place yourself can be moved or changed.
Those are maintained trails. I’ve built many of those and they’re standard in situations where you can’t mark trees with paint blazes. Also above treeline they’re essential in winter for route finding. Hikers in general shouldn’t be making cairns because the trailbuilders and maintainers are doing that. Those folks are authorized to do so, and know where the trails should go, and know how to build them to avoid erosion and harden the terrain.
The OP is talking about making your own trails, where no authorized trails exist. Except in extremely rare emergencies, there’s no need to create your own trails.
In some places where there is high use and little chance for decomp you pack out far more than just your TP.
Actually I just leave deadfalls and counterbalance snares to slow them down. A most dangerous game, indeed…
Seriously, there is really little reason to permanently mark or blaze trails in the wilderness, save for rock cairns on hard ground done to indicate permanent trails. With a map and compass any competent navigator should be able to triangulate location and calculate movement by ded reckoning. If there is enough cover that you can’t sight on landmarks you probably shouldn’t be off-trail anyway, or should be using GPS and marking waypoints. Leaving trail marks for a following group (which is probably the intention in older Boy Scout manuals) is a tricky business that often leads to parties getting lost due to missing a waypoint. Better that independent groups agree on an r.v. point and navigate to there separately.
Stranger
[Butch & Sundance]
Where are those guys?
[/Butch & Sundance]
I probably agree but for the sake of discussion let’s look at this from the other side.
But that assumes all marks are damaging to the max. For instance, beavers build dams and that is very destructive to some wildlife, but other wild life besides the beaver, use it.
Elephants knock down trees, to get leaves on the top, this means some animals will starve, yet the trees, not only help elephants but others too.
Now this is assuming all damage done by humans is bad and all damage done by animals is good.
Perhaps humans do do damge, but what about the other wild life that can use this damage to their benefit.
To issue such a blanket statements means you have to back it up and part of that back up means that any damage done by humans cannot be used by any other animals to their advantage. If other animals can benefit then you have to weigh overall which group does the best for the overall ecology.
Now I’m not saying humans don’t do damage that is bad, we certainly do and LOT of it. But it’s also apparent some animals like squirrels, pigeons, coyotes are actually better of because of people.
And I know what you’re thinking so what, three speices verses the thousands of others humans have harmed.
And I would agree totally, but the point is not everything is really as black and white as people make it out to be. And if you issue blanket statements then you need to back it up with why it’s bad, what damage is done, which animals would be harmed and if any animals could benefit. Then if some benefit you need to do an analysis of whether the damage is sufficent to issue a total ban.
What’s wrong? CIA got you pushing too many pencils?!
As I implied earlier, I think the main point is to preserve the illusion that the area sees little human activity, not necessarily to protect the environment.
“The only way outta here is that valley that leads to the east. But I wouldn’t wish that on a broke-dick dog.”
Stranger
In general, ecosystems have evolved over time with the species that currently live there. Humans make changes that aren’t necessarily compatible with preserving the ecosystem as is.
But I agree, the main reason is to preserve the illusion, and in some cases the reality, that humans are not permanent residents in the area. Once you start letting changes occur, the accumulate and eventually change the feel of the area. It’s very noticeable in areas that have been overrun, and it really does change the experience of hiking in the Wilderness.