Despite a long stretch of very wet weather this spring, trails for hiking and mountain biking are opening back up after mud season — with some caveats.
With mixed precipitation in the forecast, the Green Mountain Club is urging hikers to be prepared for foul weather if they hit the trails over Memorial Day weekend.
According to the trails nonprofit, hikers should expect wet, muddy conditions at all elevations and can help protect trails by taking care with where they step.
"We really want to encourage folks to, if they encounter a mud puddle on the trail, be willing to walk right through it,” said Nigel Bates, field program coordinator for the Green Mountain Club.
Bates said when people hike around mud puddles, they erode the edges of the trail and make it expand, which can impact plants and soil in the surrounding area.
Nick Bennette, executive director of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association, has similar advice for riders who come across puddles on the trail this weekend.
If you're leaving a track, turn back.Nick Bennette, executive director of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association
Vermont has more than 1,000 miles of publicly accessible mountain bike trails, and Bennette said it’s important for riders to know whether the trails they want to ride are open or closed before they head out. He said mobile apps like Trailforks and Trailfinders can be helpful, as are individual trail websites. Bennette said VMBA also tries to provide updated trail conditions on its website.
While some will be fully open, Bennette said wet weather may mean others are open on a cautionary basis.
“If you're leaving a track, turn back. Literally, if you are seeing your tire leave a depression in the trail, you're having an impact,” he said. “You may not realize it, but you’re pushing layers of the trail downhill which, over time, can mean costly trail repairs later.”
He said mountain bikers need to have a ”leave no trace philosophy in the woods.”
Bates suggests hitting the trails this weekend with a good pair of waterproof boots or waiting for nicer weather.
"We want to encourage folks to still be thinking of it as kind of, mud season, shoulder season conditions, and either considering some lower elevation trails, or at the very least being prepared with the right gear if they're heading up higher into the mountains,” he said.
Generally, Vermont’s mud season is getting longer and more variable. Trail managers around the state say this new norm is putting more wear and tear on the state's hiking trails.
Vermont is warming faster than the global average, especially during the fall and spring, due to human-caused climate change.
Many of the Green Mountain Club’s hiking trails are more than a hundred years old, Bates said. And they were built for a different climate.
“The flooding we've had the past few summers, and then a few pretty intense warming periods in the winter, which have led to snow melt at a rapid rate at the higher elevations — all those events really serve to funnel water down some of our steeper trails, which were not designed super sustainably in the first place,” he said.
That makes it all the more important for hikers to be good stewards, he said.
You can find more information about trail conditions and recommendations for mud season hikes here.
