Mini Trail Guide #21: Wandering among spring garden blooms now
Starting to feel like spring!
Hope you are enjoying this sunshine after those gray and wet days! I found myself smiling a lot while scouting out the trail guide for today. My family visited in the rain over last weekend and I went back Thursday - not because I needed to, but because I wanted to! The flowers made me happy!
Last week, I shared a brief overview of the 10 Hiking Essentials and thought it might be fun to share a little trail tip at the start of some of these Tiny Hikes newsletters.
“Stay on Trail”
Those 3 words. I find myself saying them in every Be Aware section of every trail guide I’m writing for you. But you know it already, right? Those words are posted in almost all the park rules and on the trail at almost every hiking spot I’ve ever visited.
It seems so simple, yet it’s so often ignored. I sometimes feel it helps to know WHY you should stay on trail. I’m a total rule follower - so that’s all I need to know! If you are, too, then you can skip this next section!
Here are just a few reasons WHY you should stay on the trail:
Safety: There are hazards off-the-trail that might be harder to see than or less likely to encounter when you are on the trail, like poison oak or rattlesnakes. In more ambitious hiking situations, a lot of falling deaths and serious injury happen when people ignore these signs — and step over the fence to get a better view or climb up to the waterfall, etc.
Preserving Nature: We’re sharing this space with wild plants and animals that we want to to survive & thrive! Especially in California, many of the native plants are SMALL so we might not even know what we are crushing by going off trail. Most of the park entities are trying to find balance between human interests and keeping wildlands wild. If it helps, you can think of it as keeping your part of the deal with Mother Nature, like “Hey, I’ll stick to this little trail so you can keep all the rest wild.” Works for nature. Works for me.
Damage from the Masses: When one person goes off trail, it may not have a huge impact, but because we live in a county with over 3 million people + millions of tourists who enjoy the outdoors here every year — then one person going off trail causes damage and eventually marks a path which others follow so a new trail gets cut where nothing will grow. Then it takes a whole process to rebuild that path back into a natural area. So it’s better to stay on the marked trails in the first place! I’m not going to even go into the graffiti and litter issues, but many of these would even be reduced if people would “Stay on Trail” without exception.
I don’t say these things to be a downer at all! I think sharing trail tips can be so empowering and valuable for knowing how to keep our hiking trails preserved for our kids to take their kids someday. Learning the WHY and practicing staying on a trail at such a young age as some of our tiny hikers makes it a better experience for all!
Do you have anything to add? Would love to hear from you via email. Do you want me to skip these intros and just get to the trail guide? Let me know that, too!
And, now, onto the mini trail guide for this week!