Social Distancing on Local Hikes

General Palm Springs area.

Re: Social Distancing on Local Hikes

Postby Florian » Sat Apr 04, 2020 6:50 pm

bytebit wrote:Does anyone know if the Black Mountain trail on Hwy 243 is open?


BM trail is open but the tower is closed.
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Re: Social Distancing on Local Hikes

Postby cynthia23 » Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:34 pm

Thanks for this post Perry. After diving off-trail to avoid oblivious oncomers, or being helplessly stuck behind dawdlers, I have come to the conclusion that our steep, narrow Coachella Valley trails are just not too well-suited to pandemics. Dunn Road is possibly okay, but even there, you are going to pass by people at a ten or twenty foot range. I now think even that's too close for safety. Studies out in the last two weeks indicate that 1. nearly half of the people with the virus are completely asymptomatic/unaware they have it. 2. the virus can transmit through aerosols, not just droplets--i.e. through breathing, especially 'forceful exhalations'. You know, the kind made by a jogger or hiker. This is why the CDC suddenly changed course on masks and Riverside Co. has ordered everyone to wear one, and by the way, suggested people not hike or jog. 3. an MIT professor who specializes in movement mechanics says the particles, under the right conditions, can drift up to twenty six feet from their originator. The six-feet thing is just a general rule. 4. The virus is ten times 'stickier' than the SARS virus, meaning it takes many fewer particles to start an infection. 5. Some young and healthy people have gotten very sick, and some old and unhealthy people have tested positive but are completely asymptomatic, which probably means there are individuals with a genetic vulnerability, which, unknown to them, randomly puts them in danger.

Sure, outdoors your risk is lower, but that doesn't mean the risk is necessarily low--not for an illness that puts twenty percent of people in the hospital for a month and severely damages your lungs. I have decided that for the duration I'll stay off trails and stick to running in an empty stretch of desert near my house.
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