How do man made hiking trails keep the grass from overgrowing?

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• DoubleDongle@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Yes, there are enough people walking on it to just kill the grass. No further effort is needed to form the pathway. Many wild animals make paths by walking on them a lot too.

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  • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Also once yearly trail maintenance or some other cadence. At least if a state or national park.

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• litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Obligatory reference to desire paths: !desire_paths@sh.itjust.works

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  • foggy@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    laughs in New England accent

    Absolutely not.

    “Rock before root and root before dirt - and never touch the mud if you can help it.”

    Literally hiking 101 out here. What we teach the children.

    Is also why ~5 miles in ADK, the greens, or the whites, is like ~10 miles anywhere else.

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    • vzq@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Can you please elaborate? What is that children’s rhyme meant to teach? What are green and white ADKs?

      Google was not very helpful.

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• cymbal_king@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Plants are actually pretty sensitive to soil compaction, which can take a lot of time to reverse. the composition clay/sand in the soil can changed the time it takes to resettle, and it might even just erode down to rock.

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  • thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This one makes the most sense. There’s trails behind my house that I walk pretty much daily and maybe meet three people the entire time. There’s just not enough people walking on that path to cause that so it must be the compaction.

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• starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Where I live they’re not maintained at all. If nobody uses them for a while they disappear. I have a “path” nearby that’s on every single map but you can no longer see it used to be a path.

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• rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No, it’s just foot traffic everywhere I’ve hiked

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• JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I built an office shed in my back yard. Almost all the grass is gone where I walk between the back door and the shed. I do this fairly frequently, but I’d think still quite a bit less than an even lightly trafficked hiking path.

  I’ll put some stepping stones out there eventually.

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• tlekiteki@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  dirt compression its what killed my potted plant

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  • thefartographer@lemm.ee ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You walked on your potted plant?

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    • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My first thought was “ah, squished by a cat”

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• Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The fact that the trail exists there in the first place means that there’s enough people walking on it that the grass dies and doesn’t grow bag. I’ve started a trail from scratch and I doubt there’s more than a handful of people walking there every week but the trail just keeps getting more carved in.

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  • thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This one’s man made though, it’s around a nature preserve and it’s runs between dozens of small communities in my area. This area is well known for outdoors, trails, creeks, small lakes, all in a very dense residential area.

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• mutual_ayed@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No membrane. Just clay and stone.

  www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/…/page09.htm

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• 56_@lemmy.ml ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The construction of a hiking path depends on the environment and budget. There certainly is membrane used in some, especially in wet/boggy environments. I think it’s mostly gravel that’s used to prevent grass from growing. (people don’t walk on the entire width of the path usually)

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