Snow Melt, Snow Go
With the weather starting to warm up, a group of three other LRCC members and I went on a short overnight backpacking trip to Flat Mountain Pond. I have done several backpacking trips in the past, but this would be my first with several inches of snow still on the ground.
The route stretched 5.5 miles along a stream, going across several stream crossings and leading up to the pond. We started around noon on a warm foggy day. During the hike out, the trail was not too bad minus a couple steep snowy sections and some decent water crossings where the ice was beginning to give way. There were a few times we considered turning back because we were anticipating rain that night and higher streams, but we felt comfortable dealing with that situation and proceeded onward. We arrived at our campground where there was a shelter for us to set up for the night. As we ate dinner and set up a small campfire, rain began to set in and we settled in for the night.
The next morning when we woke up the streams were roaring and the snow became slush. As we began to hike back the struggle was real. The second stream crossing on the way back was rushing and became too dangerous to pass. We had to trudge through the snow till we could get to where the trail crosses back. With the warm weather and rain overnight the streams rose by a decent amount and any bare ground was very muddy. Fortunately we were able to take an alternate route that got us back safely.
This experience helped me understand why they call this time of year mud season in New Hampshire and also why several trails get closed during this time. Having done trail work for about a year, I now realize that although trails are easy to travel on, they will erode much faster than the surrounding area due to lack of vegetation holding in the soil. During the times I have served as an AmeriCorps member, working on trails in the rain, there is a certain point where the soil becomes too wet and anything you try to do starts to just break down immediately. At that point, you have to stop because you are doing more harm than good for the trail.
A lot of working on trails is predicting how people will use a trail and either encouraging or discouraging that behavior through various physical structures. When trails get muddy people tend to try to step around the mud, but that can be problematic as the more people do that, the wider the trail becomes due to people stomping down vegetation or taking a small reroute, sometimes called a “Social Trail.” This widened trail then becomes a larger area for water to erode making the problem worse. So, when there is a time of year where all the trails are really muddy due to snowmelt and rain, it makes sense to close things down. Long story short, when we were assessing if we should have turned back on the hike out, that would have been the better choice.
Corbin Faidley is an AmeriCorps member serving as a Trails and Access Assistant at the SLA. Originally from Iowa, he went to school for Computer Science and spent some time working in the tech industry, but found his passion outdoors. Over the last year he has been on a couple backcountry trail crews and a wilderness fire crew. He loves spending his time hiking and swimming. Learn more about Corbin here.