October 2002 Newsletter

A Note On Trail Maintenance

Over the past few months I have received some statements of concern about runners clearing hiking trails on their own. I have been contacted because I am part of both the running and hiking communities.

The hiking trail system in this area is highly organized, with all the trails having an assigned steward (Joe Dabes and I are both stewards for various parts of the trails). There are trail maintenance standards that we are required tofollow. Sometimes fallen logs or other obstacles are left on the trails to discourage bikes and ATVs. Runners changing the trail is like hikers changing a road race route. We should allow each of our systems to operate properly. The proper procedure, if one is concerned about the condition of the trail, is to contact the trail club member responsible for maintenance.

For the Cayuga Trail (like that along flatrocks in Forest Home and in Monkey Run) the person is Tom Reimers at nyhiker@localnet.com. For the Finger Lakes Trails contact Betty Hansen at bsh2@cornell.edu.

As runners we benefit tremendously from the hiking organizations' hard work. I hope we will respect each others' domains and work together. Thanks.

-- Herb Engman

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