Explainer

Trail etiquette gets treated as courtesy. Most of it is either a safety practice or a direct response to the reasons routes get closed.

Yielding

The general convention is that the vehicle travelling uphill has right of way, because starting again on a climb is harder and more likely to damage the surface than starting on a descent.

On narrow shelf roads the practical rule is that whoever has the safer place to pull over does so, and the driver on the outside edge has the stronger claim to the line.

Horses and hikers get right of way from vehicles. Engines off or throttle down for horses — a startled animal on a narrow trail is genuinely dangerous.

Staying on the route

This is the one that matters most for access. Driving around an obstacle, a puddle or a rough section widens the route and creates parallel tracks.

Route proliferation shows up in agency analysis as resource damage, and it is a documented factor in closure decisions. The person who drives around a mud hole to protect their paint is contributing to the case for closing the route entirely.

The related discipline: if you cannot get through the obstacle on the route, the choice is to turn around, not to go around.

Groups and communication

Keep the vehicle behind you in sight. The group travels at the pace of its least capable vehicle and driver.

Signal how many vehicles follow when passing an oncoming group — a raised count of fingers is the common convention — so the last vehicle knows the way is clear.

Radios make all of this easier and are why organised groups use them.

Leaving it as you found it

Pack out everything including other people’s litter. Gates stay as you found them, open or closed. Camp on durable surfaces and in existing sites.

The Tread Lightly principles formalise this, and their underlying logic is straightforward: motorised access on public land is permitted rather than guaranteed, and the case for continuing it is made or lost by how the ground looks afterwards.

This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by Leonidas Clark before publication. Conditions and rules vary; confirm current route status with the managing agency.