It never snows around here, I never knew snow could form paths like this! Thank you for sharing, I learned something new today :)
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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Desire Paths
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Desire paths Desire paths can be paths created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic. The paths usually represent the shortest or most easily navigated routes between origins and destinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
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I'm actually just thinking, "Is this actually a desire path, technically?"
Because it simply happens because one person has to be the first to cross the field, and then the second person just follows them because they don't want to step in the deeper snow and so on
So it's only one person originally making the path and the rest only have a "desire" to not get wet feet ๐
I'm partial to a desire path being "the path of least resistance". And in that sense, it's still a desire path because it still carves a path that gets more defined as more people use it, whether or not it's fully developed. The second person didn't have to choose the same path as the first, but they did. And so did the next. And so on.
I grant you, it's kinda like the philosophical question of: how many grains make a mountain.
Yeah, but also if the first path maker had picked a silly zigzag or somewhere no one else wanted to go, the crowd would have corrected it or ignored it.
I'm sure the kink community would agree that a desire's a desire, whether that be to avoid getting wet or the reverse. Maybe not by definition, but it's a desire path in our hearts.
People walking on the snow will compact it down. Even if it's below freezing, snow will still melt some and then refreeze when this happens. Eventually you'll get a layer of ice.
Rain is mu
People walking on the snow will compact it down, eventually forming an ice layer. Rain is much better at melting snow than ice, so these paths can remain as the snow melts during/after rain.