There are many ways to mark a trail--with plastic, metal, or even paint right on the tree--but we use these homemade metal markers affixed with aluminum nails. Decades hence, a steel nail long buried in a fallen tree could break a chainsaw blade. Always good to think ahead!
Note that the nail is only hammered partway in, preferably just far enough into the bark to hold securely.
Why not hammer the nail all the way in? If the nail is deeply embedded, the tree's growth will ultimately swallow both the nail and the marker, as this tree is starting to do.
There are multiple generations of trail markers in Herrontown Woods. Back when Kurt Tazelaar, Sally and I--the founders of the Friends of Herrontown Woods--were reopening the trails back in 2013, these wooden markers helped us find the old trails. Someone told us that girlscouts had put these markers in decades prior.
That was such an adventure, cutting through fallen trees, looking for clues to where the trails once led. Recreating a lost trail system had the feeling of the frontier, and yet we were living in Princeton.
