The benefits and the risks

Among the rustling of leaves from the towering pine trees with the crunch of boots on dirt paths, a silent conflict unfolds the balance between the call to nature and adventure with the footprints left behind. Welcome to the world of trails, where every path leads to new adventures and glorious sights to see.

A true escape, for many people, is being out in nature, specifically on trails funded by the city. This is true for those like Rostislav Bautin, a current senior at Carlmont. As a student, Bautin strives to be the best he can be, meaning he needs to juggle his job, sports, and music all with school. However, Bautin has found a way to take breaks, utilizing his time in cross country as his time to unwind and rest.

Since elementary school, Bautin has loved to run. As he soon realized, he excelled at it, which led him to participate in cross country. Since then, he has stayed consistent in improving his strength and stamina, at the very minimum running seven miles per week. This passion extends to outside practice hours during the week.

“I prefer running on a trail, not even during cross country or track, just in general. I think it is a lot more fun and relaxing and you can also have a good view while running on a trail,” Bautin said.

A study from 2016 supports a common theme in the benefits of being out in nature. In it, researchers Chorong Song, Harumi Ikei, and Yoshifumi Miyazaki reviewed a study in Japan around nature therapy and the results on individuals. From it, they concluded that there was a significant decrease in cortisol after a walk in a forest compared to urban walking, indicating reduced stress levels. They also observed lower blood pressure, an increase in heart rate variability (HRV), and elevated immune systems all pointing to the benefits of preserving these forest environments.

“I consider going outside as something fun and honestly beneficial, so after, I take into consideration, ‘I did something fun and now I should really focus on work and stuff,’” Bautin said.

Jeff Powell is a nature enthusiast who is the co-founder of two blog sites he and his wife own, National Part Ventures and Smoky Mountain Ventures. Together, they’ve visited over twenty national parks and intend on exploring all of them while documenting their journey.

“All of the medical science pretty much says that being outside in nature is one of the healthiest things that you can do, physically, mentally, and emotionally,” Powell said. 

National parks are another example of public or city trails on a much larger scale. According to Powell, the great part about them is how accessible they are to the public. They are all easily accessible public areas that are considered so important that they are government-funded, making them a huge priority in the preservation and maintenance of trails.

“What I try to do is share my experience with folks, because I want them to experience the same thing. And I think investing or getting outdoors is one of those things where you do not understand it until you really do it, you know, whether it is the Smoky Mountains or whether it is the big parks in Utah,” Powell said.

The higher risk with trails around the world, however, is the higher chance of injury due to paths being poorly maintained or poor weather conditions eroding or affecting the landscape. Bautin, for two years, had to go on and off from cross country due to different injuries getting better and worse.

Looking locally, Waterdog Lake is Belmont’s nature trail, funded by the city for all its residents to freely enjoy.

“There’s always this one part that usually collects a lot of water when it rains at Waterdog. And there have been multiple occasions where some of the people slip and twist their ankles on the same spots on the trail,” Bautin said.

Recently, a lawsuit was brought up over the city’s management of local trails and bike paths according to the San Mateo Daily Journal in an interview with Patrick Cuviello. Belmont is known as a very suburban area because it has places such as Waterdog to allow people to enjoy the outdoors. Over the years, there have been controversies over whether trails are ethical or hurting the environment, and yet, some people have found ways to maintain and keep trails a constant for the public to use. 

To prevent trails from being neglected, many different trails or cities have volunteers or other systems dedicated to preserving the trails, like Belmont’s Water Dog Stewards.

Trail management

Alex Irwin is a former Eagle Scout who recently served as faculty for the Philmont Scout Camp, a ranch that spans over 140,000 acres and has a large range of outdoor activities including backpacking, rock climbing, and horseback riding. Because of this, one of the main things emphasized is trail maintenance and the principal way they do this is with the Conservation (CON) Department.

“What they do is essentially a whole range of things. They have people who go out and mark the trails on exactly how they’re supposed to be. Have inclines, and put trail markers so we know where to send people so that they can break apart the set dirt. You do not want any big rocks sticking out, because people trip and fall. Ankle injuries are really common. I thought the two most common things are ankle injuries and being struck by lightning,” Irwin said.

Because of the effort needed when considering trail maintenance, it is hard for cities to be motivated enough to support their local trails seen through recent Belmont events where they are called out. Philmont was a special case because they have a constant flux of passionate people that go through and work on maintaining the trails, some even as jobs. This is why it is a challenge right now to conserve these trails that need to be maintained constantly from weather and erosion.

According to Irwin, when a trail is damaged beyond repair, they often create a completely new route depending on the damage which can be a lot considering the fallen trees, flash floods, and other factors. These new routes, however, take a lot more effort and planning but are necessary for people to safely hike or travel without hurting the environment.

It is also important to stay on the trail to not harm the soil. According to Irwin, trails are important because when people go off the trail, they may tread on flowers and other important parts of wildlife, especially cryptobiotic soil. Cryptobiotic soil is a layer of organisms such as fungi, lichens, and cyanobacteria that work together to build a hardened crust around the soil.  Without it, the wind will blow up all the loose soil and sand and cause dust storms, eroding trails much faster and taking out the nutrients that plants and other organisms need, taking hundreds or even thousands of years to be restored.

One special aspect of Philmont is its horse trails. This also applies to areas like Woodside, which allow horseback riders. 

“You need to have trails at certain approved angles because if it is too high, you need a bunch of switch tracks, and because of that, the horses will fall and break their ankle, and they need to be shot which happens a lot more than you would expect. Save the horses,” Irwin said.  

These are all examples of the different considerations needed when planning and making new trails.

Sharing the trails

Mateo Beasley is a sophomore at Carlmont who is very experienced with trails as a dirt bike rider and mountain biking enjoyer.

“My dad was a big rider with street bikes too. By the time I was around seven, I’d seen his bikes, sat on them, and everything, and my sister and I both wanted to bike too,” Beasley said.

According to Beasley, the biking community, in general, is one that has often argued or had conflicts with the hiking community. One common issue hikers have is with the ruts the bikes make. A rut is when it rains and because bikes travel in a straight line, the path is deformed as a result of a newly made line dent that just continues throughout the path. The problem with that is when it all dries, there are indents on the trail that people can get injured on.

“Metcalf, the motor park and some of their roads were unprepared. It felt like they had not dealt with the ruts or anything; some of their trails that were produced were neglected. the worst time is when I hit a kicker, rock on the face of a jump and I flew off my bike and cracked,” Beasley said.

However, though aligned with a common interest and problem of maintaining the trails, tensions are still high between the two communities.

“A lot of environmentalists, they’re banning dirt bikes because they say there’s too much emission. And I think that’s unfair because they’re picking on us, even though we have only .01% emissions while cargo tanks have much more,” Beasley said.

A broader perspective

Yen Ly is a senior at Piedmont High School who hopes to major in Environmental Engineering. 

“From what I understand, there are sustainable trails, and then there are trails that are not sustainable. So it really depends on how they build it. But on the positive side, it can involve the public in conservation efforts, because they’d be more likely to want to preserve something that is used often. Then there’s also a transportation appeal, so they can walk or bike instead of driving and having green spaces in general, which would be a nice break from having urban heat islands and whatnot,” Ly said.

Urban heat islands are urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than other areas. Trails that very often are within a suburban setting help set up ways to decrease the higher temperatures. These places, however, are decreasing due to a lack of use and an increase in the demand for housing.

“Trails are definitely an important part of land use and habitat preservation. It really depends on whether the trails are designed sustainably or not, though. On one hand, they can be great opportunities to incorporate green spaces into our communities or bridge habitats together. But if they are not made sustainably, trails also have the ability to disrupt the natural environment,” Ly said.

Alice Ford is an award-winning filmmaker, travel host, stuntwoman, and sustainability expert. Ford also does a lot of wildlife research and tourism which she aims to share with the world through her YouTube channel, PBS TV show, and blog.

“I think that giving people knowledge that they may not already know, allows people to have a deeper connection with the things that we’re going out and seeing,” Ford said.

Ford also has experience with trail management and restoration with different national forests and locally in the Los Angeles area.

“It is incredibly hard work to get out and not only create trails but to maintain them.  One of the things you see time and time again is trails that have become closed because of erosion or overuse so it is usually volunteers that are going out and fixing trails,” Ford said.

On top of it because of strenuous amounts of work, it also costs a lot of money and resources to maintain these trails. According to Ford, there’s a large percentage of Americans that block our national park prices, even though it is only around 800 million dollars to maintain hundreds of thousands of miles of trails all around the country so that the trails do not become dangerous under the influence of natural erosion from surface runoff and flash floods from happening.

“I think the hardest part is overuse, especially in our busier parks. You know, when you look at places like Yosemite or Zion, or some of these parks that get millions of visitors every year, and most people are only going to these very small selections of really popular trails that have become either easier or more popular online. And so maintaining trails like that get an incredible amount of foot traffic is really difficult, which is why in so many parks, you’re seeing either pavement or you’re seeing steps into the landscape,” Ford said.

As a result of the overuse of different trails, it is eroded to the point where they can only be maintained by steps or by putting pavement or concrete on different landscapes to keep them in shape.

According to Ford, pollution is also a huge problem seen through the surge of it on trails after COVID-19 with people who do not pick up after themselves. Because of that, trails that are nice or can be maintained aren’t being used due to bad reviews of trash or people not being responsible. 

“I think that we should be encouraging people to find different trails, not just the super popular ones. You know, there’s plenty of beautiful trails out there that aren’t necessarily the top five using resources like AllTrails and Google Maps,” Ford said. “I think you got to be a little curious and excited for the unknown, especially because you never know what you’re going to experience out there.”