Bonneville Shoreline Trail *Group 3*

By: Andrew Hancock

     We hiked the Bonneville Shoreline Trail at 10:30 AM on a Saturday morning in September. The weather was sunny and clear and in Emily’s words, “It was a beautiful day!” We went as a group and observed all the other people exercising on the trail that morning.  As we were hiking, a few of us complained about the hike and one of us hated the fact that nature was touching her. Though there was some hesitation about the hike in the group, we all continued on together to accomplish our goal of viewing how others interact with nature and how this trail is considered an edge.


     The energy level on the trail was higher than the average everyday energy.  Most of the people on the trail were running or biking and in the end, some sort of exercising is what was happening there.  It is a public area and there were all different types of people using it, including animals.  Seeing that the area is so large and people traveled in pairs or by themselves, there was little to no communication on the trail. Most of the communication was trail courtesy warnings and a simple “hello” as individuals would pass. 

   Edges “are the linear elements not used or considered as paths by the observer. They are boundaries between two phases, linear breaks in continuity,” according to Image of the City. On the other hand a path is considered a walkway that people can move on. So technically, this could be considered a path and an edge. It is a path in the sense that it can be walked on to get in and out of the district we live in, but an edge in the sense that it marks the end of the district. Whichever way you would like to take it is your choice; we are stuck in the middle.

     In the end, most of us thought the trail was very nice and relaxing.  It was nice to be out in the open and enjoying the city view.  We thought the attitude of the people was overall very positive and friendly.  We felt very safe and protected on the trail.  We have all experienced events like this before, but some of us had better reactions to hiking than others.