Forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) are techniques and approaches recommended by state forestry agencies to protect water quality from forestry operations. Poorly designed roads and skid trails with inadequate BMPs can potentially generate disproportionately large quantities of sediment, which is the primary pollutant from forest operations. Bladed skid trails, which are constructed on steep terrain to allow skidder access, have greater potential to produce sediment than overland skid trails. BMP recommendations advise pre-harvest planning and layout of bladed skid trails in order to minimize erosion, yet equipment operators commonly construct bladed skid trails with minimal planning. We examined pre-harvest planned and logger-selected skid trails to characterize differences in BMP implementation and potential erosion between the two skid trail layout/construction strategies. A total of 25 and 27 sample locations on logger-selected and pre-harvest planned bladed skid trails were installed on...