Mud season may be great for pigs, but not as much for the beloved and protected Adirondack High Peaks. While there has been an increase in damage in recent years due to high traffic in the area, it occurs more often in the spring. As snow melts and temperatures slowly being to rise, there’s a higher probability of erosion taking place from the thawing ground.
Professor Alexander Stewart of the geology department says that the High Peaks Region is mainly made of bedrock, and there is not a lot of soil development on these slopes. This means that as people go up them, they are much more susceptible to erosion. The increased popularity of High Peak hiking trails in the past 20 years has increased this damage.
Stewart explains how this risk of erosion increases during the spring, even with lower traffic. “Spring is wet and sloppy,” Stewart says. “The top layer of the ground is thawing, but it has no place to go because the lower layer is still frozen. This causes puddles to form, a lot of which run down the mountain because of the steep slopes, causing erosion.”
Executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, Neil Woodworth, also says that there has been an increased risk of damage to the peak region this year. “This spring is particularly a bad season with protecting the region. The snow is lasting longer,” says Woodworth. Woodworth continues by echoing Stewart’s explanations of water drainage and springtime erosion.
Woodworth says that another thing that has not helped erosion in recent years is efforts by hikers to keep their hiking shoes dry during mud season. “Hikers will sometimes go off trails for this, and trample vegetation in the process. The best thing you can do is staying on the center of the trail,” he says. Woodworth acknowledges, however, that this strategy may not be the best for your shoes, as this is where the puddles and mud will be.
SLU’s Outing Club is well aware of these risks and takes extra precautions while leading trips in the Adirondacks during mud season. Kari LaPierre ’19, a trip leader and member of the OC, says that they try to avoid trips into the High Peaks as much as possible during mud season. “During mud season, we try to do more hikes on smaller mountains that are elsewhere in the Adirondacks,” says LaPierre. “We also always try and stay on trails and avoid side cutting as much as possible to prevent any possible erosion in the area.”
LaPierre also says that the OC tries to educate other SLU students about the effect that they could have on the outdoors. “We make sure on any trips that we lead, not just in the High Peaks, that we talk to other students about what we’re doing and why,” she says. “We talk about things like staying on trails, not damaging vegetation, burying human waste, and carrying out garbage.” LaPierre emphasizes the importance of SLU keeping its good reputation in the High Peaks region, which the OC tries to maintain through limiting group sizes in the area and following Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) standards.
So, before you plan your finals week hiking trip into the High Peaks, remember these things: stay on the trails, be prepared to get wet, and maybe think about going somewhere else. Woodworth stresses this last tip. “We here at the ADK Mountain Club would much prefer people to go to other parts of the Adirondacks that are flatter and may be dryer than the High Peaks Region,” he says.