Hikers don’t find their way up to mountaintops by step trails. They hack their own way through the woods, wade across ponds and springs, taint their mountain boots with mud and dust. Sometimes they borrow a hand from their hiking cane, but their major tools are still hands and feet.
You might be shocked when they step on strange lands without hesitation, heading resolutely toward somewhere deeper in the wild where trees block sights and not a single hint of civilization can be spotted.
You might call it the spirit of an adventurer. Though the existence of this spirit in a hiker’s heart is undeniable, there’s one more thing that contributes to them making these bold moves, guiding their ways and keeping them safe.
Either pigment painted or cloth strips tied on branches or trunks are a language of which meanings only hikers know. Using distinct colors like yellow, red and blue, these signs can easily catch eyes if you know where to look. They often occur at a turning point, or the fork of a road, or sometimes just a tiny path leading to no foreseeable end.
This is called trail blazing, and its function is simple: Indicate the right way, or rather, the safer way to continue fellow hikers’ journey.
Commonly, in the USA and Canada, it is one single color, often white, red, blue or yellow.
Other trails, especially in Europe, may use more complex systems of painted shapes in more than one color. Some Austrian trails, along with Central European countries such as Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Poland use colored bars with different meanings attached to different colors.
Trails in South Africa are often marked by yellow footprints painted on trees and rocks.
While painted stripes are commonly seen in North America and European regions, trail flagging is a predominant method to mark a mountain hiking trail in Asia. The red ribbons usually indicate an ascent route while yellow ribbons indicate a descent route. On some mountains, local non-standard colored ribbons are used to identify specific trails.
Real climbs on mountains—not those light walks on broad mountain roads—can be unnervingly risky adventures. Precipitous slopes crafted by great nature, sometimes made slippery by rain, snow, or simply moist with dew, can cause pitfalls. While facing the utter unknown, adventurers always look for these signs for the right way to go: “pioneers have already explored the way, we are good to go.”
It is not only a sign anymore—those who put it there have already added one more dimension toward its meanings—it is a “representation of civilization,” as one of my hiker friends says.
Standing in the middle of nowhere, engulfed by the fear of wilderness and unknown distance, surrounded by only trees and barren ground, the feeling of isolation can eat up your soul.
But the moment you see the trail blazes—it is as if civilization has left a footprint in sight, your nerves are soothed—you feel like you are accompanied by precedents, you are not alone fighting against nature.
“I have been here before. I made it out of here and so will you,” the trail blazes whisper in the wild. It arouses a particular sentiment in the top of people’s hearts that, only when you truly experience it, can you understand. It is aroused from the kinship of mankind and the faith we have in our fellow humans.
