Last trip, I cut across a meadow to avoid a flooded trail. It felt wrong, but everyone does it, right?

Honestly, one person walking across some grass a few times a year is not the big issue. It gets trampled by animals all the time anyway. The real problem is when a hundred people do it and make a new dirt path. That single shortcut you took probably just bent a few blades. Save the guilt for the actual stuff that hurts the place, like littering or bothering wildlife. This just seems like a tiny thing to worry about.

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phoenixh147mo ago

You said animals trample it anyway, but that's a totally different thing. Deer and elk move across the land in a natural way that doesn't wreck it. Our boots are heavier and we always step in the exact same spot, which kills the plants and starts erosion. Saying "one person" doesn't matter ignores how every single new path started with one person deciding it was okay. It all adds up until you have a strip of hard dirt that nothing grows in. That's why the "Leave No Trace" idea asks us to be careful about stuff exactly like this. The trail is there for a reason, and going around it just moves the problem.

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sandrafoster7mo ago

Read a trail maintenance report that explained how a single shortcut can compact soil enough to kill root systems. @jamiehunt isn't wrong about the hundred-person effect, but that report highlighted how one visible track invites the next person. They had before-and-after photos of a spot where a few people avoided a puddle, and within a season it was a wide, muddy mess. The plants just don't come back once the ground gets that hard.

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