Quote Originally Posted by Tipi Walter View Post
I just don't see the "absurd damage" you're talking about with hikers, as compared to horseback riders or bicyclists or ATVs. A perfect example is in the Mt Rogers backcountry which is bisected with the Appalachian Trail and surrounded on both sides with wilderness areas open to horseback riders, i.e. "saddle potatoes."

Hundreds, thousands of hikers and backpackers use the AT thru the area and there is almost no camping damage and no trail damage because it's off limits to horsemen. Go into the Lewis Fork wilderness or the Wilson Creek wilderness nearby and a month worth of horseback riding ruins the trails with long deep mud ruts along with having their scattered poop everywhere. Is it okay for hikers and backpackers to poop right on the trail and leave it above ground? It must be okay since the horseback riders do it---horse poop that is. And in creeks too.

Your "absurd damage" must be in reference to hikers building giant bonfires or leaving 24 empty beer cans or skillets or blue tarps or cutting down living trees or a hundred other acts of idiocy. But for actual trail usage and damage, hikers do little. Some foot trails are much more rugged than others and on rainy days when these trails are used by 20 or 30 people a day such trails can get rutted and muddy and slick since they are so steep. But this can be solved by careful trail construction like wooden steeps and switchbacks.

Now throw a couple 1,000 lb horses on these steep trails and they destroy steps, mark up rocks, and turn a normal trail into a rutted churned up mess.
I agree with this. The two times I have been on Max Patch, there were dozens of visitors all over the place but very few actual hikers. Most were picnicking, flying kites taking pics, etc.