By John Blombach | Assistant Editor
Next time you take your nature walk or hike up Wachusett Mountain, you may notice that there is a strange new topography. Mother nature has been busy re-engineering the trail structure as well as the summit road and parking lot at the top. Because of increased popularity, particularly on the weekend, the vehicle and foot traffic has quadrupled over the last decade, causing great concern for the stability of the soils and protection of local vegetation. Interest for the use of future generations has mandated the re-engineering of the most used tourist structures.
The summit road has been paved with care to surface runoff. The summit, unfortunately, had to be paved and re-structured for the same reason. The new trails look strange, almost like a stairway to heaven, with steps set by hand from large rocks. The Appalachian Mountain Trail volunteers have been busy readying the trails for the new season. Sadly the summit looks like a supermarket parking lot. Reminds me of the lyrics of the 1970 song Big Yellow Taxi, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Pavement everywhere you look and signs of erosion of soils and extreme run-off. The whole mountain seems over-run with human life, but not much of what most come to see – wild animals and natural fauna.
Kids from the city think that the engineered trails are made by mother nature or left by a great glacial sheet of ice that covered the earth eons ago. Parents who are ignorant of the fact that these “steps” or the “stairway” are a way to fight the rapid erosion occurring at breakneck speed everywhere they put their feet, wear down the underbrush and root systems that hold the soil in place.
The summit had its erosion and runoff problems due to the high amount of foot and vehicle traffic encountered on any given weekend from May through October. So great is the influx of weekend sight seekers and leaf peepers that extra help is needed on weekends. Traffic cops direct and control the heavy flow of traffic making its way to the summit for the breathtaking view of Western Massachusetts and the Quabbin Reservoir to the West, Majestic Mount Monadnock, and the White Mountains to the North, all made possible by a new observation tower. On a good day, one can see Mount Washington and the White Mountains, the Green Mountains of Vermont as well as the spectacular Boston city skyline and Logan Airport to the East.
Some poorly designed trails exhibit more erosion than better-designed paths. The trails that follow the fall line, such as the Pine Hill Trail, are typically steep and relatively straight up. Usually, these are the paths with the shortest distance to the summit and are the most widely used in the trail system.
Trails become deeper in snowy vegetated areas than in wind-beaten bare ground areas. The existence and timing of runoff from snowmelt seemed to be relevant to differential erosion. Trail slope is another factor contributing to erosion. Needle ice or saturation of surface soil appeared to cause side wall erosion. Installation of ropes along the trails made hikers stay on the trail, helping to mitigate erosion.
Use of alternating trails is helpful in reducing damage caused by excessive foot traffic. The use of ropes to keep hikers on the main trail are also key to preservation.Use of large stones set into the trail like a stairway reduces the wear and loss of soil, but it also increases the water runoff. This can be controlled on Pine Hill Trail by a series of water bars, which are canals dug diagonally across the trail to shunt the water off to the side. These water blocks can be identified by the characteristic stacking of stone along the upslope and downslope sides to the channels.
Of course, all these improvements are going to cost. Last summer, it was five dollars to drive your car to the summit. One can only guess what it will be this year, but judging from the crowds on Patriot’s Day this spring, there may not be any limit to what one is willing to spend for another day in paradise.
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