Single trail
The term single trail stands for a path that is so narrow that you cannot drive or walk next to each other. He first found use in the area of the mountain -Sports, lately he is also in the area of trail running used. As a rule, single trails are around 30 to 60 cm wide. The term is often used to describe a hiking trail that is used for mountain biking or trail running. Since single trails have quite different degrees of difficulty, there are some approaches to classification, analogous to the difficulty scales for climbing .
In English , the single trail is referred to as a single track .
Environmental impact
Trails are an integral part of national parks and forests. They are necessary to ensure access to and maintenance of remote areas. In areas of greater visitor interest, they concentrate the effects on the smallest possible area and can thus help to keep areas that are particularly worthy of protection away from harmful influences.
Although most of the trails were originally designed for hikers, the majority of the studies carried out on this topic show that the environmental impact of mountain biking on trails hardly differs from that of hiking and is well below the harmful effects of riders.
Common consequences of improper use of trails by hikers, bikers and riders can be:
- Loss of vegetation
- Compaction of the topsoil
- Soil erosion
- Change in the runoff behavior of rainwater
- adverse change in conditions for surrounding habitats
- Disturbance and permanent displacement of the local fauna
Another often observed effect is the creation of new trails to bypass particularly impaired, for example muddy or eroded sections. In the medium term, this leads to an expansion of the area used and an intensification of the above-mentioned effects.
literature
- Managing Mountain Biking , IMBA, 2007
- Ralf Buckley: Environmental Impacts of Ecotourism . CABI Publishing, 2004
Web links
- Single trail classification STS
- Information on the single trail classification in the MTB internet forum mtb-news.de
- Rules for the environmentally friendly use of trails Deutscher Mountainbike eV, accessed on October 4, 2012
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Environmental Impacts of Mountain Biking: Science Review and Best Practices. Retrieved February 3, 2014 .
- ^ Ralf Buckley: Environmental Impacts of Ecotourism . 2004, CABI. digitized version on Google Books. Retrieved February 3, 2014 .