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OK, I'll be the voice of the opposing view.

As soon as the ground thaws through mid-June, the 40+ miles of trails out
the back door of where I board are a mess. The trails are clay-based soil
and follow the perimeter of a reservoir that has many streams draining into
it -- thus many stream crossings. These trails DO NOT drain and the cool
weather combined with no tree leaves and lots of spring rain keeps them wet.
They are saturated pretty much from the spring thaw through mid-June unless
there is a dry spell.

If the trails are left alone, the water simply runs off the thawing and
compacted soil. No erosion. We know this because the less acessible and most
difficult trails are in the best condition when we finally see them in
mid-June or during a dry spell such as we had recently at the end of April.
The gulley crossings are narrow and the banks are firm.

When riders ride over these trail when they are wet and the clay soil is
saturated, the horses hooves churn up the compacted clay and it makes crater
soup. In particular, the trail leading into and out of the gullies is eroded
by sliding and scrambling hooves -- the water is carried out of the gullies
and onto the trail. The gullies themselves become hock deep mud soup and the
gulley passage is widened with each passing horse. The streams carry the
churned up mud from these passages to the reservoir.

There are some spots where culverts were put in and topped with clay soil
and other spots where the slope simply has clay soil. The hoofprints collect
the water on the slopes in the spring and they start to dry in about, oh I
don't know, late July and early August? The drying clay creates VERY sticky,
tendon grabbing mud. In the meantime, how many WNV carrying mosquitos have
bred in those water-filled hoofprints?

On the flats, hooves punch holes that turn into ankle turners that stay all
season. You need a lot of traffic to flatten them out, but by that time of
year, and to get to that part of the trail, the horse and rider have to
slide down several gullies or slog through tendon grabbing mud and suffer
through monster flies, spider webs that cross the trail and sufocating
humidity. Many riders take a break from riding at about that time of year
after punching holes in the saturated trail during the pleasant spring
weather.

Those of us who live near these trails and know them well put our horses in
a trailer and drive an hour or two to trails that have soil that drains --
trails that can handle the hoof traffic in the spring.

After the trees leaf out, most of the rain never reaches these trails, the
soil dries and gets compacted by what traffic there is and they are
enjoyable again, except for the spots that never dry and the gulley
passages. Once the soil is compacted and dry, the rain that does reach it
runs off the top.

By about the end of August, or early Sepetember, the trails have finally had
enough traffic that all the ankle-busters from the spring are mushed down
and the soil is good and compacted so that rain impacts the trail little in
comparison to spring conditions. Yep, just in time for some of the trails to
have access limited for hunting season.

Two local OHC groups are working hard to fix the gulley passages by digging
out the clay, putting in drainage and topping it with stone and gravel.
We're hindered by the fact that the state park these trails are in won't let
volunteers use motorized equipment, so we're doing it all by hand.

So my advice is, you are punching hoofprints, making mud soup, slipping and
sliding and "skiing" into gullies, you are likely on clay soil -- please let
that trail rest and take your horse somewhere where the trail drains! We
don't want these trails closed during the spring (because there are dry
spells), but it would be nice if people used some common sense.

Deanna (Ohio)


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