How are hiking trails made? This question is one of such that sends chills to my spinal cord in an instant.
Do you know why?
Let me tell you.
Of everything pertaining to hiking, this is the most thought less-of by hikers. Nobody wants to know how hiking trails are made.
We just want to wake up one morning and start hitting the trail.
But, we are going to solve that issue now by knowing how hiking trails are built.
Making trails: What a trail is
I don’t really think this is important (since you already know what it is). Nevertheless, for knowledge’s sake, I’ll just give a definition.
According to Wikipedia, a trial is an unpaved path.
Therefore, for hiking, it’s an unpaved footpath.
How hiking trails are made
Let’s get straight to the point.
There’s no magic here. Hiking trails are either made by natural occurrences or made by man.
Natural trails
These types of trails are made due to the common usage of certain a path either by humans or animals.
Examples of Natural trails include; California National Historic Trail, and Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
Man Made trails
Like I said earlier, some hiking trails are man-made. Depending on what you want, you will need to have a few tools and a will to start creating one today.
Can you see how complex it’s getting to create one now?
In other cases, government bodies like the NPS are responsible for the creation and maintenance of trails.
Examples of man-made trails include; Glacier National Park, Sequoia National Park
There are three main ways to start building a hiking trail.
- Determine the purpose of the trail. In our case, it’s hiking
- Plan the route. From here, you can choose to dodge anything that will make the trail creation process hectic for you.
- Establish what your design would look like. Since it’s for hiking, you determine the width, height, etc.
If you wish to know “how to build a hiking trail in detail”, then, click here or here to read through this post thoroughly.
BONUS: THE 10 MOST DANGEROUS HIKING TRAILS IN THE WORLD
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Conclusion
I believe I’ve answered your question.
If not, drop a comment.
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