Tim
Trail Runners are lazy Parasites,
Interesting article in Outside Magazine, and I'm sad to say that I agree with it to a point.
Locally, the hikers and MTB'ers do most of the trail work. I've helped, but not nearly as much as some casual hikers, and yet I use the trails more than they do.
Thoughts? How is it in your area? How could this change?
“Paralysis-to-50k” training plan is underway!
I admit to being lazy as the extent of my contribution to trail maintenance mostly involves dragging or moving fallen limbs and branches when I see them blocking the path. I've moved some pretty big pieces but that's really not much in the grand scheme of things. Part of my problem is that I am not that social, so am not hooked in with running or other groups that might organize cleanups.
In dog beers, I've only had one.
I admit to being lazy as the extent of my contribution to trail maintenance mostly involves dragging or moving fallen limbs and branches when I see them blocking the path. I've moved some pretty big pieces but that's really not much in the grand scheme of things. Part of my problem is that I am not that social, so am not hooked in with running or other groups that might organize
cleanups.
Interesting point.
I'm sure most MTB'ers are more social than the average trail runners, especially ultrarunners. It's rare when I see a lone biker.
Several years ago I went out running at Nolde Forest a few weeks after an early October snowstorm that cracked hundreds if not thousands of trees and branches. There was so much debris, big and small on the trail so of course I was dragging anything I could pull or lever off trail and into the brush. You could barely go 100 yards without encountering an obstacle. It was really bad out there. A group of runners came by me and did not stop at all, they just dodged or crawled around the stuff. So I suppose our image is earned.
Trails
I'd be happy to help but there are no trails nearby...closest is a rail trail in another state and the closest one in OK is 2 hours away and I don't go there. Almost all of the events I do are 3+ hours away. There are no close trail running groups, again 2 hours away.
I actually wish some of those D@$%^!!! mountain bikers would quit doing so much trail work !!!!
Well in a way I do. In some areas they do a lot of work so they can sanitize the trails of all obstacles. Gotta smooth out them bumps, remove the rocks and almost pave over stuff so they can increase their strava times. Can't let someone splash through a creek or a mud puddle because that's not politically correct.
At the same time the good ones will work to armor a trail or made it a little gnarlier with A, B and maybe even C lines to chose from. The area that I run and ride in up around R.B. Winter State Park is seeing some trail maintenance being done. From what I can tell, other then when they trim some trails for the Dam Half in the fall, all the work is done by the MTB club. This year I've been on two trails that they rerouted. They actually did a pretty good job and it's still possible to get a little muddy without getting stuck in the bog.
I think one of the reasons that trail runners tend to not do much maintenance has to do with them not minding crawling over and around stuff as that's part of the experience. There is also the perception that one's foot prints don't really do any damage. And that's almost true until you multiply it by many thousands.
Anyway, no matter the reasons, I'm more then a little ashamed to admit that I never really do any maintenance other then pick up trash and move smaller trees that are down. I really, really want to keep some of the trails open this year with the weed wacker. If I can just find the time.
Also have to admit that a lot of things in the article are true. I do some because like the article says some of the runs I do require it (some don’t count aid station volunteering, you have to do trail work). Like TRT coming up.
Around here it’s hard finding official opportunities because they are scheduled and if you can’t make a date you have to wait a while until the next date comes around. Anyway I do unofficial trash pick up most of the time, and my DD and I are scheduled to help on the Lone Star Trail next month for our TRT work requirement. But we can, and should, do more.
tbd.
Sue
I never did trail work....manually because my husband would probably have a fit that I was clearing brush some where else while our property needed brush clearing! But no excuse and now that I have time I will be volunteering. XT has a good point that a lot of runners are loners. I also think the MT bikers really get into it out of fear that they will lose their rights to ride it.
05/13/23 Traverse City Trail Festival 25K
08/19/23 Marquette 50 dns 🙄
There are trail running groups in the Grand Rapids, Mi area who regularly get together to run trails and also to do maintenance. I don't live in GR, and there are no trail running groups around where I live. I don't run in groups anyway...I am too slow. I think, by in large, trail runners are solitary creatures. As for mountain bikers, they do so much damage to the trails they should do more maintenance. And...btw, I run through the puddles not around them because I don't care if my feet get dirty...and most trail runners are the same. If I knew of group trail maintenance opportunities, I would help out.
January , 2022 Yankee Springs Winter Challenge 25k
Thread killer ..
They ( mtb) do a lot of trail work around here but they also utterly destroy the trails . We have Wilderness areas all around and the trails are like night and day , trails open to bikes need constant maintenance and have extensive damage . The author also had to throw in some horse hate, Back Country Horsemen have been building and maintaining trails since before mountain biking was a thing . The running community here does do trail work usually for race requirements . There are also a lot mtb who don't do trail work and undo the work done by their community . The local bike club is constantly asking for them to not ride when the trails are too wet , to not braid the trails , to not ride new lines , to stay on existing trails , to not cut switch backs .
Faster Than Your Couch!
I disagree with the article in many points, though I do agree on some.
The article makes many claims ("trail runners routinely show up less than other groups when it comes to trail work") without citing any reliable, quantifiable sources. Seems to me the author is only showing his own opinion or experience, not a statistic. It also seems to me the author is a big fan of organizations and organized sports, and loathes the freestyling trail runners who are not organized like mountain bikers. Someone a bit too much wanting to control everyone who does something he does not approve of.
The quote "Solo trail runners—like solo cyclists, hikers, and even the occasional horse—are low impact. Nine million trail runners are a different story." is - in my view - wrong. There are no nine million trail runners running on one single trail. They are probably spread out more (on more miles of hiking trails) than mountain bikers (on dedicated MTB trail miles).
I also disagree that trail runners run around puddles, and that this causes more damage than MTB riders riding through the puddles. I can see this everywhere in my area: where there's a puddle, it's the hikers that walk around it, not the trail runners. And the deep tracks that the bikers leave behind right in the middle of the trail are more damage than the footsteps on the side which disappear soon after the puddle has dried up, contrary to the deep tracks which don't disappear and only deepen more with the next rain.
It goes on and on. Sure, trail runners might do less trail work, but it's not that they don't do any trail work. In my area, the trail runners clear most of the local trails at least once a year from excessive brush, for their races, and they do close trails that are eroding, and re-route trails. Mountain bikers, on the other hand, widen the trails (at least in my area), from narrow, rocky and rooty single track to double track on a layer of flat, cobblestone-like rocks. They are the ones who cut the roots of the trees with their gears, not the hikers and trail runners. Mountain bikers cut or break trees in order to widen the trails, not hikers or runners. I see this in my area over and over on the trails that are popular with the bikers.
So it is, in my opinion, only fair that they also do more trail work, even though their trail work actually does everything the author of the article accuses the runners of doing in terms of damaging existing trails: eroding them, removing original surfaces, widening them, cutting trees, removing roots, moving soil, etc.
The point that I agree on is that trail runners should be more active when it comes to doing trail work - especially when it comes to trail planning or re-routing, and keeping adjustment of trails to the needs of mountain bikers (widening, re-surfacing, removing roots and trees, etc.) to a minimum in order to preserve original hiking trails that have been created for use by humans on foot, regardless of speed.
Run for fun.