Notes and Research
Managing Forests for Recreation
We plan, design, and build field-based features and facilities for natural interpretation, and design and construct recreational trails for strolling, hiking, bicycling, and skiing.
- Section 1: Managing for Natural Interpretation
- Section 2: Managing for Recreational Trails
- Bibliography and Links
Managing for Natural Interpretation
Natural Interpretation educates and sometimes guides visitors to a natural setting, using signs, trails, canopy openings, and other physical structures to bring attention to beautiful, important, sensitive, or interesting natural features -- and in some cases, cultural and historical features. (Naturalists and field interpretors often facilitate natural interpretation, especially in the realm of public lands.)
Landowners can use natural interpretation to meet several sub-objectives, including these and more:
- Providing a calm or picturesque trail for a casual stroll.
- Demonstrating, identifying, or explaining natural features or processes, as well as cultural or historical features in the natural setting.
- Diverting people away from ecologically sensitive or dangerous places.
Effective natural interpretation, a process of framing the visitor's experience, requires a thoughtful combination of clear communication and aesthetic consideration. For instance, an effective choice of features -- views, botanical or biological phenomena, landmarks -- requires attention to aesthetics and to the communicative process of framing these features. To this end, natural interpretation can use a variety of physical structures to frame the visitor's experience -- signs, trails, canopy openings and other facilities.
Again, for effective natural interpretation, aesthetics and communication are key to desiring the appropriate physical facilities or forest alterations. In regard to signs, for instance, the landowner or visitor might appreciate a naturalistic, unobtrusive, low-lying sign noticeable only to someone sitting on a well-placed bench or strolling down a short side spur. The hiker might appreciate a mix of the uniform and the complex -- like a stroll through a well structured stand that turns to face a picturesque view then turns again and climbs a short, steep hill where the visitor finds a bench in the summer shade (or spring sun).
Aesthetics has many dimensions beyond the visual, of course. For example, preferences will influence the ruggedness or slope of a walking trail, or perhaps the material that is used on the trail surface.
Effective natural interpretation will involve creating a recreation management plan, similar to plans for other objectives. The basic parts include:
- Assessment and maps of the resources, including natural features, current natural interpretation efforts, and physical terrain.
- A clear statement of natural interpretation objectives.
- A design and description, using precise terminology and maps, of the desired spatial character of the relevant landscape.
- A schedule of events for achieving and maintaining facilities and features.
- A budget.
Managing for Strolling, Hiking, and Skiing: Building Trails
Trails are a great resource for getting out into the woods in any context, especially in the typical stand structures found in Montana, with lots of fallen trees accumulated from a century of fire suppression.
Of course, any trail should pay careful attention to aesthetics, particularly in relation to visual features and comfort. Thus, management efforts should be aware of the particular needs of expected users. For example, trails should not have long, steep stretches if visitors will be using them for track skiing. Likewise, trail design should accent beautiful features and mask unattractive features, while providing for a sense of complexity and mystery, but not messiness. And, a looped trail is much more fun to hike or ski than a there-and-back trail, especially if it's linked to a well-thought network of trails.
A long-lasting trail must be well constructed, and in some cases, the client will prefer a surface. The process of creating new trail, especially on a slope, involves a careful planning process, as does management of other objectives. The typical plan will include:
- Assessment and maps of the resources, including natural features, current trails, and physical terrain.
- A clear statement of recreational objectives.
- A design and description, using precise terminology and maps, of the desired spatial character of the relevant landscape.
- A schedule of events for achieving and maintaining facilities and features.
- A budget.
In general, the well formed trail will require some basic selection thinning, as well as some minor excavation or surfacing on slopes. Generally, the work requires a side cut and fill operation (by hand crew or machine, if the terrain allows) followed by mechanical tamping.
For the adventurous, we can create a route for safe telemarking between widely spaced trees and tree clumps on a naturalistic stand on a northern slope (to hold the snow).
Bibliography
Birkby, Robert C., Lightly on the Land: The Sca Trail Building And Maintenance Manual 2nd Edition(Seattle, WA: The Mountaineers, 1996).
Demro, Carl and David Salisbury, Complete Guide to Trail Building and Maintenance, 3rd ed.(Boston, MA: Appalachian Mountain Club, 1998).
Knudson, Douglas M., Ted T. Cable, and Larry Beck, Interpretation of Cultural and Natural Resources(State College, PA: Venture Publishing, 1995.
McQuillan, Alan, "Cabbages and Kings, the Ethics and Aesthetics of New Forestry," Environmental Values 2-3 (Autumn) 191-221, 1993; "New Perspectives: Forestry for a Post-Modern Age," Western Wildlands (Winter), 13-20, 1992; Personal Communication, 1998. The author has charted the historical and philosophical discourses on aesthetics and ethics, arguing that aesthetics should figure strongly in forestry and suggesting ways to integrate into practice. McQuillan finds that the aesthetics discourse is reflected in recent work on complex and chaotic systems, which he also seeks to integrate with forestry.