Basin Lakes in Indian Heaven?

[justpeachy]

The USGS Gifford Peak map (Indian Heaven Wilderness), which is from 1983, shows a trail to Basin Lakes, a trail which takes off from the Indian Racetrack trail. I find no mention of this trail in my hiking books. Although I don't have the Washington NG TOPO! software, I can see topo maps through the geocaching.com website and the trail doesn't appear on the MyTopo there. (I don't know why the Basin Lakes trail wouldn't show up on MyTopo, since they are USGS maps. The most most recent version of this topo on the USGS site is 1983, so where would MyTopo be getting something more recent?) But in any case, I'm wondering what the deal is with this trail. It would seem to be an abandoned trail. Does anyone know anything about it and why it was abandoned?

[mandrake]

I'm not sure why it was abandoned, but the trail was in pretty good shape as of several years ago. I seem to recall it being quite steep at the eastern end near the junction with the Blue Lake/Berry Mtn trail -- may be closed per a possible washout? I don't recall it being bad there -- just the trail being rather faint. The Basin Lakes are small forested tarns; bit swampy in the area. Excellent huckleberries through there when in season. I did a big loop, north to Blue Lake, then south to the Indian Racetrack and back. I think there are a fair number of abandoned trails & reroutes in the Indian Heaven area.

[drm]

Some trails that are not on current maps were officially abandoned, which means that the FS decided to not continue to maintain them. Some never were "official", they were just use trails from earlier years.

I don't think that the old USGS maps differentiated between official and not. If there was a followable trail that they knew about, on it went. I used the USGS maps heavily in my Sierra days in the 1980's, and many of those that were way above timberline were probably never maintained. Maybe some were built by the CCC, but the USGS didn't care.

Clearly there are very good trails that are not on the newest maps, and having at least the intention to maintain such trails seems to be why land managers like the FS make that decision. And I'm guessing that NG Topo jsut follows that. Green Trails does have a dashed line for the "Gap" on the east side of Mt Adams, so they put in at least a few non-official trails.

Given the conditions, I'm surprised that old trails survive so well in Indian Heaven. The maintained trails certainly get a lot of work.

[Grannyhiker]

It's obvious that a lot of the Indian Heaven trails that originally went through meadows have been deliberately rerouted into forest--the PCT is one of those. This was to reduce wear and tear on the fragile subalpine meadows, which are very vulnerable to even a small amount of trampling. A trench (often multiple trenches) worn into these meadows takes many, many years to heal, which is one reason the paths are still visible.

I have used these abandoned trails and plan to use them again, but urge everyone to be extra careful and stay on the already trampled path when doing so.

[raven]

GH,

We know why the PCT was rerouted, but not that facts supported rerouting as the best solution.

What you say about fragility of meadows may be true in general, but one can't tell by looking at old trails. Standard practice in trail building through meadows was, and may still be, to dig a trench. Whether foot-worn but not dug trails are more resilient than dug trails is a fact neither you nor I know the answer to. When following bypassed sections of the PCT, signs of predecessors on the trail are sometimes only those left by shod horses. Recovery of such trails to meadow status seems likely to be slow, and my running shoe shod feet are not likely to add much to the time required. Perhaps instead horses should have been banned, or camping rules changed, or fires banned, to discourage stopping within meadows and, thus, local overuse.

Indeed, I'm not sure that hikers caused the multiple trenches sometimes seen. I do know that running shoes do less damage than do the old rigid vibram-soled boots, and those boots less damage than horse's shoes. Its a matter of heel strike force and pounds per square inch, made visible on any muddy slope. Perhaps someone reading this knows of statistical or other experimental research that might shed light on this hearsay-fueled topic [of trail closure claimed to be due to boots causing meadow damage] and might share references and/or comments.

I suspect that many of the trails in Indian Heaven that are not on hiking maps were and are used by horse travelers and guide services, including during hunting season. Some may still be maintained for those uses.

[Martell]

When a trench gets muddy, people tend to walk around it, creating a second path.

[Grannyhiker]

When a trench gets muddy, people tend to walk around it, creating a second path.

And a third path and a fourth path--I've seen them in many places! The second path usually starts when, as inevitably happens, the primary trail becomes a trench too deep to walk in comfortably. When the second path gets too deep, a third path evolves, and on and on. I've seen up to 6 parallel paths through meadows in some places. I wish I'd taken pictures!

My caution was about going OFF trail, which is why I requested that people stay ON the trail in the fragile meadows. Much of the ground cover in Indian Heaven is heather or huckleberry, both of which are very sensitive to even a small amount of trampling (heather especially). While trail runners are not as heavy as boots, the lug soles definitely damage the vegetation, particularly in places walked over several times. I've noticed this at the door of my tent when I'm camped on vegetation, which is why I now carry a small scrap piece of 1/8" closed cell foam as a doormat. I don't know how much it helps, but it least prevents my shoes from digging up the vegetation as I crawl into and out of the tent. This was a big concern to me in Wyoming's Wind Rivers, where there are so many dead trees (bark beetle) that you usually have to camp in meadows to be safe.

Horses, of course, do lots more damage (weigh over half a ton, 4 feet instead of 2, shod with metal). Horses often refuse to walk in a trench before people do--horses are inherently extremely nervous about getting their feet caught. However, the repeated effect of human feet is not to be taken lightly. I noticed secondary paths forming in several places on the upper part of the Vista Ridge trail and in WyEast Basin when I was up there a week ago, even though no horses are allowed there.

[raven]

GH, I am glad that you agree with me in every fact mentioned. Now, back to the real point, morality aside: Do humans walking on those paths or untrailed meadows do enough damage to warrant rerouting the trails to less scenic areas while still allowing horse use? Was there any reason to do more than deny horses use of meadow trails; prohibit camping in those trails; and possibly reconstructing the trails by building draining treadways? Is there any evidence about sources and amounts of damage in different meadow conditions (soil types, slopes and vegetation) other than verbal stories comparing apples to oranges?

[Ryan Ojerio]

Personally I like trails that are on an adjacent slope to a meadow so you can see the meadow, but the trail still has good drainage. Raised trailbeds (i.e. turnpikes) work well and there are many in the Indian Heaven, but they sure take a lot of work to build and maintain.

I did a quick search of Google Scholar and found this article. I couldn't access the full article as I'm not affiliated with a University. I'd have to buy the right to download the pdf, but the abstract provides some info. I expect the last sentence will raise some eyebrows as well as questions about the study's methodology.


* Erosional Impact of Hikers, Horses, Motorcycles, and Off-Road Bicycles on Mountain Trails in Montana
* John P. Wilson and Joseph P. Seney
* Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 77-88
(article consists of 12 pages)
* Published by: International Mountain Society
* Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3673739

ABSTRACT
"This study examined the relative impact of hikers, horses, motorcycles, and off-road bicycles in terms of water runoff and sediment yield from 108 sample plots on existing trails in or near Gallatin National Forest, Montana. A modified Meeuwig drip-type rainfall simulator was used to reproduce natural rainstorm events. Treatments of 100 passes were applied to each plot. The results confirmed the complex interactions that occur between topographic, soil, and geomorphic variables noted by others, and the difficulty of interpreting their impact on existing trails. None of the hypothesized relationships between water runoff and slope, soil texture, antecedent soil moisture, trail roughness, and soil resistance was statistically significant. Five independent variables or cross-products explained 42% of the variability in sediment yield when soil texture was added as a series of indicator variables. Ten variables combined to explain 70% of the variability in sediment yield when trail user was added as a second series of indicator variables. Terms incorporating soil texture (37%), slope (35%), and user treatment (35%) accounted for the largest contributions. Multiple comparisons test results showed that horses and hikers (hooves and feet) made more sediment available than wheels (motorcycles and off-road bicycles) and that this effect was most pronounced on prewetted trails."

[raven]

Thanks Ryan. That does not answer my questions, but it does add new variables. Also, it may be a biased study -- in the sense of extrapolation to real world conditions other than those that closely mimic the study conditions. Maybe otherwise, also. It does show that merely digging new ditches for hikers in new places may not have taken care of real concerns -- the major effect may have been to increase the total area impacted by trail construction.