Missouri Envirothon 2008

A State Park in your area has witnessed rapidly growing visitor use during the last five years that has improved the local economy at area hotels, restaurants and other retail stores. Trail use, primarily day-use hiking, is a main activity at this State Park and over the past several years managers have observed accelerated visitor-caused impacts to some trail resources—especially a general widening of the trail path and soil erosion. Other impacts include trampling of endangered species and reduced water quality. Off-trail travel (often referred to as social trails) has been increasing as well. No set patterns of social trails are apparent, but the number of such trails and their expansion is very noticeable and unacceptable to park staff and managers.  

Conventional wisdom among park staff suggests the problem of increased social trails was caused primarily by a few park visitors—mostly children accompanied by adults and groups of unsupervised teenagers. Also, most of the off-trail activity is thought to occur on weekends.

 Further discussions among staff, however, raised questions about the extent and nature of the problem and appropriate actions to ameliorate continued impacts. How “bad” was the off-trail problem? How many visitors were actually going off-trail? Who were the offenders? When were the actions occurring? What activities were offenders doing off-trail? Do trail users know there is a general park policy to stay on designated trails? It was decided that answers to these and related questions could aid greatly in a more informed decision on what to do about off-trail travel in the park. During the peak use season of mid-June to Labor Day, park staff decided to conduct an informal study and observe several stretches of the highest-used trails in areas that were experiencing growing numbers of social trails. Five trail stretches of about 1/8 mile in length that could be seen by an observer were selected for monitoring. Three of the five trail stretches were within 20 feet of lakes or streams and paralleled the shoreline. Each stretch was observed on three randomly selected weekend days and three randomly selected weekdays.

 Observations occurred for about two hours on each randomly selected day, and observers recorded their observations on prepared data forms. To the surprise of some management staff, off-trail activity was frequent and sometimes prolonged, and the occurrences were equally pronounced on weekdays and on weekend days. During observation periods off-trail activity among 1,700 people observed ranged from 35 percent to 70 percent on individual trails, and averaged 55 percent. That is, on average, one of every two people walked off the trail at one or more places along the 1/8-mile stretch of the trail. Tabulating as best they could, observers found that those hikers leaving the trail most often were: (1) children accompanied by parents or other adults, (2) groups of teenagers, (3) people with pets, and (4) large groups (groups of more than seven people). The most frequently observed activities of off-trail hikers were: (1) taking photographs, (2) looking after pets (almost exclusively dogs), (3) looking at or for some feature such as birds, flowers, or other vegetation, and (4) conversation among group members, often to allow other hikers to more easily pass by. Findings from the study helped park managers better define the nature and extent of the problem concerning off-trail traffic. The problem was “worse” than managers thought and more widespread with respect to whom was involved.

 What was learned should help park staff grapple with several important questions about how much and what types of off-trail activity could be tolerated before management intervention was necessary to address the problem.

 Your team is the park staff.

 What management strategies and tactics might be implemented to address unacceptable amounts of off-trail travel?

 How might these strategies impact the soils, wildlife, plant life and water resources in the area?

 What might be the impact on the trail user if the strategies and tactics are implemented?