Читать книгу Kauai Trails. Walks strolls and treks on the Garden Island онлайн

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Agencies in charge of hiking areas may close an area because they’ve realized it’s environmentally too sensitive to survive more human visits. An area once open to overnight camping may become a day-use-only area. Trails become impassable from lack of maintenance. Happily, agencies may open new areas because they’ve been able to acquire new acreage or complete a trail-building project.

Since I first wrote this book, I’ve seen old trails close and new trails open on Kauai—and then vanish as the rainforest reclaimed them in the wake of a natural disaster. Other trails on public land have become inaccessible because to get to them, you have to cross private land, and the landowner no longer grants permission to cross the land.

Change is the only thing that’s constant in this world, so that guidebook authors and publishers always play “catch up” with Nature and with agencies. We want to keep guidebooks up to date, but we are always at least one step behind the latest changes. The day when you’ll have constantly-revised books on-line at your wristwatch/computer terminal is not quite here, although it’s getting closer. It’s possible that a few trail descriptions are becoming obsolete as this book goes to press.