Recommendations for Forestry Practices Compatible with Hiking Trails
Doug Welker and the Forestry Committee
Timber management practices significantly affect the quality of hiking trails and the experiences of trail users, in both positive and negative ways. Likewise, how hiking trails are laid out and constructed can impact the forest resource, not only with regard to timber values but ecologically as well.The following recommendations for both timber management and trail layout and construction, if followed, can result in both high value timber and quality recreation.
Recommendations for timber managers
Timber management plans on private lands should consider not only timber values, but other forest values as well. Many landowners have favorite places they like to walk, and may have informal or even formal trails established on their lands.If you plan to do logging on private lands, ask the landowner if there are such special places on their lands. They might want you to leave those areas free of slash after logging, avoid making skidder ruts there, perhaps leave a favorite tree or two, or take extra care to avoid damaging those trees when felling other trees or operating heavy equipment. Showing consideration for the special concerns of landowners can leave a very positive image of you as a timber harvester, and may lead to word-of-mouth recommendations and future logging jobs for you.
Skidder trails and logging roads should cross existing hiking trails at right angles when possible, to minimize impacts to those trails. Skidder trails and logging roads which cross hiking trails gradually (or, even worse, run along hiking trails), create a larger area of impact on a trail than when the crossing is made more or less perpendicular to the trail. Likewise, logging roads and skidder trails which run parallel to and close to a hiking trail for a long distance are visually undesirable to most hikers.
Remove tops and unwanted felled trees from the trail, and, if practical, from a short distance either side of the trail. This will make the job of trail clearing easier for trail managers, and will improve the appearance of the woods in the vicinity of the trail.
Leave trees with blazes if practical. Trail blazes (usually metal or plastic diamonds or rectangles nailed to trees, or paint blazes on trees) give hikers reassurance that they are on the trail. Removal of one or two consecutive blazes can make it difficult for hikers to follow the trail, especially in areas like recently-logged forests where the trail tread may be temporarily disturbed. If thinning, try to select trees without blazes if possible. If not, consider reinstalling nailed-on blazes on nearby remaining trees. Regardless, if a number of blazed trees are to be cut, let trail managers know so they can install new blazes after logging is complete.
Consult with trail managers before logging. While there may no agreement in place to protect the trail from logging, there are several reasons why trail managers should be consulted before logging begins, including:
1. Hiker safety. Trail managers should have the opportunity to post signs or otherwise alert hikers to the presence of logging operations.
2. Trail reroutes. It may be advisable to reroute a trail either before or after a logging operation takes place.
3. Preserving trail signs, markers, bridges, or other trail developments. Trail managers spend a great deal of time and money installing trail signage and other improvements along a trail. Give them the opportunity to remove them before logging (if they will be threatened), or at least make you aware of their locations.
Consider leaving buffer zones (narrow strips of unlogged forest) along cliff edges, lakes, streams, and other wetlands. These buffer zones, or strips, have value not only for protecting the ecologically-fragile areas they border, but often provide excellent corridors for trails. They also may provide corridors for the movement of a number of other animal species, including some which are rare and protected. In addition, these corridors may reduce the chances of genetic isolation among populations of certain species of plants.
Avoid felling unmerchantabletrees into these corridors, when possible, especially if the corridor is very narrow.
Consider alternative management plans which may result in a more positive experience for hikers, provided logging costs and the value of timber harvested are not greatly affected. Hikers have strong preferences when it comes to the appearance of the woods they're walking through. All else equal, they usually prefer big trees, open forest, and little evidence of logging other than an occasional old stump or the remains of an ancient logging road. They also like to see a variety of wildlife, and experience a variety of woodland settings.
While logging has a negative connotation for many hikers, once shown well-done selective logging, many of those same hikers may feel more positive about hiking through a logged forest. Likewise, while clearcuts may not be desirable places to hike on a hot, sunny day, hikers may appreciate seeing open land birds and other wildlife there. Therefore, for many hikers an ideal hiking experience includes not only some older forest, but a mixture of young forest, forest with thick undergrowth, and openings as well.
Intensive forest management can be quite compatible with a quality hiking experience, provided timber harvesters make some effort to take hikers' desires into consideration.
The following practices can enhance hiker satisfaction and may not significantly affect logging economics:
1. In some areas, leave more canopy than you would otherwise. This reduces the amount of thick understory which grows up, and gives hikers more of a feeling that they are hiking through an old growth forest.
2. Leave more conifers. They provide variety, thermal cover for certain species such as white-tailed deer, and a north woods feel, something especially appreciated by hikers from urban and more southern locales.
3. Leave more den trees and don't cut as many culls as you would otherwise. These trees provide homes for wildlife and may be unusually-shaped trees, which hikers may appreciate.
4. Avoid cutting special areas such as likely camping areas and where the trail crosses streams, and make an effort not to severely impact scenic views from the trail. Avoid extensive areas of identical timber management, all done at the same time, along a lengthy section of a trail.
5. A half mile clearcut, all cut the same year, or a mile or more of selective logging that was done all in one logging job result in long, monotonous stretches of trail. Perhaps a minor change in logging plans could break up these extended sections of identically logged woods.