Spring is here! Despite the importance of getting outside right now, we do have a serious challenge in that it is Mud Season. We ask that you do not drive on dirt roads to access these properties:
Parker Pond Headland, Fayette (The Fellowes Cove Road is a private road and is only open to homeowners during mud season).
Surry Hill, Fayette
Holman Conservation Area, Litchfield
Nancy’s Bog, Winthrop
Judy Kane Kennebec River Parcel, Augusta
Echo Lake Watershed Preserve 3, Fayette
Not only is there a risk from cars on dirt roads, our trails can be damaged by all users during mud season.
Here’s what you can do as a trail-user to help:
Best practice is to limit trail hiking activities during the worst part of mud-season and pursue other activities on more durable surfaces. Such activities may include: road biking or walks on solid gravel or pavement roads.
If you are going to explore the trails, consider ways to reduce your impact:
Hiking is preferable to biking or other wheeled vehicle use which put an even higher ground pressure on the trails. This includes fat tire bikes.
Some trails will be worse than others. Try to plan ahead and seek upland trails of moderate grade and with southern exposure. Avoid steep trails and low wet trails.
If you begin a hike but discover the trail is wetter than you expected, consider turning around and finding a drier hike.
If you do find yourself needing to pass through a muddy section of trail, best practice is to hike straight through the wet spots so as to contain your impacts. Wear appropriate footwear to plan for this!
Keep in mind that you are one among a herd. Your impacts alone may not seem significant, but the collective impacts of ‘the herd’ do generate significant impacts.
If you are curious about the “why” behind mud season impacts, read on!
Melting snow and precipitation, along with freeze-thaw cycles, and a lack of vegetative transpiration (growing plants), creates a saturated soils environment. In other words, more water is entering and staying in the system than is leaving it.
Soils have a limited capacity to hold water. Most trails are located on native soils that become fully saturated this time of year. These saturated soils are what leads to the mud in ‘mud-season,’ as well as soft spots which quickly turn to mud if exposed to hiker activity.
These soils become vulnerable to compaction, erosion, and displacement with every foot-step or other ground disturbance, such as tire treads.
This reduces the long-term resiliency of the trail in a few ways:
By compacting soils and reducing their capacity to hold water.
By creating low spots and ruts which further channel water, leading to erosion and reduced drying capacity.
Displacement and erosion leads to the exposure of rocks and roots and pollutes waterways with sediment, creating a host of environmental concerns.
Hikers skirting around wet areas leads to an expansion of impacts; diminishing plant growth and further destabilizing soils.
In summary, mud-season presents a threat our natural areas and adds potentially significant maintenance costs if precautions are not taken. KLT is a very small organization, supported by our members, and relies heavily on the labor of volunteers. Please respect their efforts!
Thanks for doing your part to protect the quality of our trails and surrounding environment.
Mud season information is updated from the Green Mountain Club.