Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 118, May 2019 | Page 34

Help with Clean-ups
: For more on Love Our
Trails and how you can
get involved in clean-
up operations, visit http
://loveourtrails.com.
Credit to Wildrunner:
This article first
appeared in the weekly
newsletter published
by Wildrunner, a Cape-b
ased events
company specialising
in trail running events,
including the popular
Trail Series events,
the three Mountain Cha
llenge Series events
(Jonkershoek, Helderber
g and Marloth), and
various multi-day stag
e races around Southe
rn
Africa. More info at ww
w.wildrunner.co.za.
4 Run where you are allowed to: If you have done a trail event, it does not mean
that trail is necessarily open for the rest of the year to runners. You may now have
a GPS track of the route, but that doesn’t mean you can re-run the route any time
you want to. Event organisers often obtain special permission to link various routes
to provide a novel experience, and this approval may come with restrictions on
the number of entrants or the time of day and season the event can occur. Some
routes may be paid hiking trails and are then by default not open to the general
public, or runners in particular, in order to provide a certain experience to the hiker.
5 Don’t litter: Again, a no-brainer, but this should also relate to your apple core
or banana peel. Yes, it will break down in time, but it may also attract wildlife like
baboons to the trails. Rather take it away with you.
Giving Back to Mother Nature
As a trail loving community, we should all be actively looking for ways to reinvest in
the outdoor spaces that bring us such joy. This is the ethos behind Love Our Trails,
a South African-based international movement that aims to protect trails around
the world through education and activations. It was founded by Blake Dyason after
he noticed the increase in litter and graffiti on local trails around Cape Town.
Blake is an outdoor enthusiast and leads by example, believing we all have a
responsibility to make a positive difference in the world around us. He therefore
invited friends to assist with mountain clean-ups, and quickly realised that cleaning
up after others isn’t enough – we also need to educate fellow trail users. “In
the past few years we have seen an increase in mountain biking, trail running,
rock climbing and hiking, and as much as I love to see more people getting out
in nature, we have also noticed an increase in poor trail etiquette, litter, graffiti,
vagrant trails and erosion,” he says.
“Over the past four years, Love Our Trails has been hosting regular clean-ups with
volunteers on Table Mountain and Lions Head, documenting what we collect and the
graffiti we remove, and in that time we have collected close on two tons of litter!”
6 Get the permit: If it’s a paid trail, or you need a permit, then pay your fees and get
the permit. You may not think so, but that money does assist in trail maintenance. Educating Trail Users
7 Sign in: If there is a logbook, then sign in. This is also important, simply for safety
purposes. For example, in the case of fires these books will be checked to get an
idea if people are on trails in the area. Blake says that Love Our Trails is using this data to build a trail culture that cares
for the environment, including educating people about what litter is, as many trail
users think fruit peels or leftover food is eco-friendly. “Anything that wasn’t there
before shouldn’t be left there,” he says.
8 Respect your fellow trail users: Here I am not talking about the human kind, but
rather the feathered and four-footed kind. I have on many occasion come across
bushbuck on my runs, but the total list of encounters includes bush pig (with
piglets on one occasion), caracal, honey badger, baboons, monkeys, zebra and
eland, through to smaller encounters like otters, large spotted genet, shrews, frogs,
etc. These are special moments that I cherish, and which take precedent over
pace, distance and duration stats.
“We have found that newbie trail runners are more inclined to be unaware of the
impact of litter on the trails, or perhaps carry across some road running habits,
whereas regular trail users tend to have trail packs and re-usable bottles. This led
us to noticing that if our trails are clean to begin with, they stay clean for longer, as
newbie trail users generally copy what they see. So, if we set a standard of leaving
no trace and picking up litter, they tend to follow suit.”
If you see animals ahead, slow down and enjoy the moment. Let them move out
of the way rather than you chasing them off the path. Whilst training for the Otter,
I was coming back from the waterfall quite late in the evening and coming around
a corner I saw a family of four bushbuck on the path. I had been pushing myself to
see how fast I could cover the last technical section, but upon seeing the bushbuck
I stopped and spent about 30 minutes with them as they continued to feed along
the path. With the sun setting, no one else around and the bushbuck calmly
feeding about five metres from me, I was extremely content. Another problem Blake has identified is an increase in runners going off trail or
exploring sensitive environments. “It normally starts with a blog or Instagram
picture, and suddenly more people want to capture that same picture or
experience, often without knowing the route. I get it, they want to connect with
nature, and there is no better feeling than exploring, using all your senses and
finding something magical like a cave or viewpoint, but when we walk off trail,
we potentially damage vegetation, leading to erosion, changing the flow of water
and disturbing the eco-system. As more people explore off trail, so our parks
managers or land owners spend unnecessary time repairing trails and rehabilitating
vegetation, instead of looking after the sustainability of the environment.”
9 Clean your shoes: This is especially important if you are going to be running in
a protected area, as we are all carrying seeds on our shoes, which we can then
transport into new areas. This is of particular concern with alien invasive species. Five Simple Rules
Kyle wraps up his advice with these words: “I suppose in the end our behaviour on the
trail comes down to our values, what sort of relationship we want with the trail, and
how we see ourselves in nature. For me, a large part of trail running is to be immersed
in nature and to experience the trail. Being aware of our intentions and actions, and
mindful of how these can have an impact, are important reflections for all of us.”
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ISSUE 118 MAY 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
At the end of the day, Blake recommends that all trail users should adopt the Love
Our Trails five-step guideline:
1 Leave nothing but footprints.
2 Take nothing but pictures.
3 Keep to the trail.
4 Look out for other trail users.
5 Leave the trail in a better way than you found it.
3 Leave the poles: Unless you have really dodgy knees or you are doing a tough
ultra, rather leave the trekking poles behind. The points dig into the trail surface
(more than your soles) and can exacerbate potential erosion spots. Unfortunately,
these are often used on ascents and descents, where the chance of erosion is
higher, but where the benefit of the trekking poles is at their greatest.