The Easiest Trail

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Mission Trails Regional Park (MTRP) in San Diego County is the largest municipal park in California and the 8th largest in the country. It is located in the heart of San Diego and a true gem of natural biodiversity. 

MTRP has more than 60 miles of trails, so you can expect to encounter many signs along the way. Here as always, I focus on picturing English. This sign is a mixture of illustrations and language. 

The drawings show people hiking with sticks, a bicycle with triangle mountains in the background (= mountain bike), and a person on horseback with a line drawn through the illustration (= no horseback riding).  In the middle above the mountain bike, there is a square with a snake-like line drawn through, and below the superlative "easiest."  

There are two words I will focus on in this post: "easiest" and 'loop.'  At my other blog (manyenglishes.blogspot.com), I talk about polysemes or words that have multiple meanings. The top of the sign says "Visitor Center Loop."  What is a LOOP?  What is a LOOP TRAIL? Also when we use the superlative form of adjective, we are comparing more than three items. 

There is too much information on this sign, so I am confused finally. The sign points in both directions, presumably meaning that the hiker can move in either direction (right or left), either way is the 'easiest' and if you do the whole 'loop', you will have travelled 1.5 miles. I thought signs were supposed to help a person earn clarity.