Go through the trench, not over it!

I delicately tip-toe along a semi-submerged branch with my heavy backpack threatening to throw off my balance.  I leap onto a rock and almost fall backward, but catch myself on a tree near the edge of the track.  With no more protrusions in range, I gingerly test the ground with my toe, judge it solid, and step forward—it doesn’t hold my weight.  I sink into the trail to my knees and bang my shin on a submerged rock… for the fifth time that day…

So this is mud season…

While hiking during the mud season may promise hard-core adventures, such excursions not only endanger oneself (and make one miserable in the process) but also harm the environment through erosion and vegetation destruction.  Mud season in the Adirondacks is exactly what the name implies: a whole lot of mud.  Between the melting snow pack and unpredictable weather, water enters the soil at too great a velocity and in too great a volume to be absorbed by the forest, so in many cases (especially along hiking trails where the soil is already more impermeable than in other less intensely traveled areas) the water simply sits on the surface.  

Many hikers try to circumnavigate muddy trails by walking along the side of the trail, or taking short detours up through the trees, but this is exactly the wrong response.  During the spring, young vegetative shoots begin to penetrate through the mud to absorb the sun in the absence of a dense canopy (or in the case of conifer dominated stands, in disturbed sites along the edges of trails).  Hikers avoiding the muddy patches tramp on the juvenile plants at their most vulnerable moments.  Without significant root systems or protected tissue, the plants do not survive the encounter.  This event especially becomes a problem above 3,000 ft where more than just the seedlings suffer from shallow rooting.  A study by E.H. Ketchledge et al. (1985) found that minimal human foot traffic in fragile alpine environments can permanently damage plant communities.  Further, avoiding the trails causes problems with soil erosion, especially on steep trails.  Every time a hiker attempts to avoid the worst of the muck by going around it, he or she widens the trail and, consequently, the disaster area.  Go through the trench, not over it!

While forcing hikers to go through the mud may seem to perpetuate deep mud pits, containing the worst of the erosion within the trail is less environmentally damaging than spreading the mud to the rest of the forest.  When the weather (and mud) is especially bad, the DEC will often voluntarily close trails to the public to protect the fragile environments.

Thus, with April and mud season upon us, try to find other methods of recreation in the Adirondacks.  Don’t spread the mud.

 Photo Source: Taken by Emily Snider on the Dusky Track in NZ (same origin as the anecdote at the beginning of the post)... They have mud season there, too!

References:

http://www.adirondack.net/hiking/spring-hiking/

Crane, Dan.  "Mud Season: Sloshing through the Wet Trails."  Adirondack Almanack.  http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2011/04/mud-season-sloshing-through-wet-trails.html

Ketchledge E.H., R.E. Leonard, N.A. Richards, P.F. Craul, A.R. Eschner.  1985.  Rehabilitation of Alpine Vegetation in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.  U.S. Department of Agriculture.