Endangered Trails

The Washington Trail Association published its first "Endangered Trails Guide" in 2002 and has continued to publish a guide annually. The 2002-2008 editions of this guide can be found here. Common factors that lead to this endangerment of hiking trails highlighted in this guide are: 

Novel figure 2:
Accounts for all trail threats mentioned in
the Washington Trail Association's
"Endangered Trails Guide" 2002-2008

• issues with logging companies
• abandonment or lack of maintenance
• not enough funds for maintenance 
• heavy Fall and Winter rains leading to washouts of trail portions
• mining and road-building interests
• government neglect

How do trails become endangered?
Most of the time, it is not a singular event that builds up to a trail being endangered. There are combinations of factors that gradually build overtime until it becomes difficult for trail maintenance. For example, a flood could cause great soil erosion making trails difficult to traverse. This difficulty hinders the visit of hikers, as lack of funding disables any trail recovery. Eventually, this can lead to abandonment as the trail becomes of least priority due to its heavy damage.

It is easily assumed that a second appearance by a trail in another edition of this guide would not occur. Ideally, the conditions of these trails should be addressed right away. However, there have been trails that have made appearances 2-3 times. Below are listed the trails with their respective year of which they appeared in the Washington Trails Association "Endangered Trails Guide" and a brief reason for their appearance:                                                   

Boundary Trail

Circle Peak

Middle Fork Cascade River Trail

2002: Motorcycle traffic that damages trail soil

2003: Abandonment - tough to get trail returned to the inventory of regularly maintained trails
2008: Tatoosh Fire Summer '06 that lead to an administrative close of entire wilderness area due to fire-caused deadfall

2002: Relocation of trail onto abandoned logging roads as a result of timber sales during 1950s and 1960s; trails can't withstand heavy hiker use

2007: 2003 and 2006 washouts in 2003 and 2006 rendered trail inaccessible 

2008: Poor location of trails on old logging roads, difficult to find, falling apart





2004: Heavy fall and winter rains: floods and fire

2008: Fire led to downing of trees and destruction of tread; budget neglect on the part of Congress; money to restore burned areas cannot be spent on rehabilitating trails 

Trail to Necklace Valley

2002: Limitation of user fees due to a decrease in available user fee funds. A lack of these funds were supposed to fix deterioration of backcountry trails

2007: Steepness and rockiness of hike needed frequent maintenance, bridges, and foot-logs for maintenance


Sources
Washington Trails Association: Endangered Trails Guide 2002-2008, http://www.wta.org/trail-news/publications/endangered-trails/endangered-trails
Boundary Trail Photo: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2013-07-11.8191964739
Circle Peak Photo: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/tripreport-2007090210
Middle Fork Cascade River Trail Photo: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/tripreport-2006050903
Trail to Necklace Valley Photo: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2013-06-13.5010859597