Nature-Built "Trail"

Day 226: When you travel cross-country in Pacific Northwestern forests, you're likely to come across game trails which, although they make penetrating the tangle easier, have no "destination" at their end. The herd disperses, the pack separates into individuals or pairs, and everyone goes about their own business, assembling again at some other location where a new section of "trail" may then begin. You may also encounter "social trails," those paths made by repeated human use to reach an attraction on the map or a reliable patch of berries or mushrooms. Until yesterday, I had always assumed that those two methods were the only way "trails" developed in trailless areas. Ma Nature showed me another.

When this Doug-fir fell, there was no one around to bear witness to the sound it made. It hit the ground hard, its descent not buffered by branches of surrounding trees. The impact had another effect: it compressed the soil, crushed the vegetation. The shock caused the trunk to break at its weakest points, in this case at either end of a sturdier middle section about 15 feet in length.  Did this section roll away? Possibly, but I rather think it bounced, tree trunks being rather springy and bendy on a large scale. In any event, it came to rest a few feet from the point of initial impact, leaving behind a "trail" which was as nicely laid in as any of our human crews could manage. For the length of one shattered Doug-fir, I had relief from heaving myself over similar logs to reach my goal, and was given a natural-history lesson in the process. Mother Nature is the best teacher of all.