BY SARA TABIN
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Dish hiking trail is reopening next Monday (July 6) with new rules, Stanford announced today.
The Dish was closed to hikers on April 3 because people weren’t obeying COVID-19 safety rules like walking in a single file on trails and keeping six feet apart from strangers.
People are still expected to follow precautions like staying six feet away from others and wearing a face mask if it is not possible to maintain a six-foot buffer.
The main 3.3-mile loop around the Dish will now be one-way only. Everyone will have to walk counterclockwise. People are supposed to commit to completing the entire loop, not go partway and then walk back, to make sure everyone is walking in the same direction.
Changes have been made to the Dish area to make following the rules easier. While the area was closed, the university smoothed out areas near the path to give people more room to pass each other, and installed stripes on the pavement to indicate the direction of one-way foot traffic. More signs have been installed to remind people to social distance.
I’m surprised that Stanford, with all of its brilliant scientists and doctors, would think that the COVID-19 virus could be spread by people walking on a hiking trail. The odds that a microscopic aerosol particle could reach another person on the trail is astronomical. Stanford closed the trail because of the general sense of panic that’s affected everybody’s judgment. But there is no reason to close an outdoor space to prevent the spread. It’s not like hikers are confined to a closet with other hikers.
Stanford should deny passage to all Palo Alto residents until they open up Foothill Park to the public. Reciprocity. If Stanford can afford to do this, to much heavier usage, then so can the City of Palo Alto.