Some trail history
A conversation at work this week: “Are you Danimal?” No, that’s Dan Swanstrom. He also built A River Runs Through It, Shit Happens, Anal Intruder, No Girlie Man… “Where does that (faint trail) go?” That was part of the original Danimal! And there used to be a big overstuffed chair on that stump! Danimal is certainly one of the oldest trails in town, however, the original underwent a drastic change (and segmentation) when the Stonebridge development built its streets (2002-ish). A long missing piece of it is now paved over and about a third of the “north” section was re-connected to the current spot on Stonebridge drive. I remember suffering through the original full Danimal in either direction… It was a character building technical XC ride/walk. The new(er) Danimals have been adapted to better suit the surrounding network - Both ends are now designated as descents and great effort was made to keep the middle section bi-directional (2015-ish). Anyone remember riding Chris Markle’s crazy gap to wall ride? The Danimals have generated a flurry of maintenance requests in the last few years and we’ve now mobilized the trail crew for some renovations.
The Michals and I went for a work-planning walk and we thought that perhaps the trail difficulty placards were switched: “North is pretty much a blue trail except for the rock face”, “Middle is so steep in a lot of places!”... Your legs were not wrong… My clinometer confirmed that those steep spots actually reached the maximum recommended for black trails. Oops! “Can we actually make it blue?” I set off exploring possible rerouting to alleviate the grades and found that we would need to essentially bypass most of the existing trail… So for now, we’ll just change the difficulty rating on the signposts and give it a fresh coat of armouring.
Back at Danimal North, we replaced rotten logs with rocks and protected some abused roots. We started on a little flow improvement project but once again had to run after digging up another Wasps’ nest. We’re hoping a bear will clear the site for us before the Westside Wheelup! If anyone is keeping score, Braden finished his season with the most stings by far. I wish him better luck at the University of Calgary. We otherwise made great strides refreshing the trail including destroying a pedal catching chunk of bedrock and a new climbing bridge for that spot where we all grumble “I thought this was supposed to be a descent!!!”. Further down the trail, we made a plan to revitalize the long, bumpy, straight section… and you can help! We’ll be running a volunteer trail night along that section to add some berms and jumps. Stay tuned for more details after Labour day.
Bonus this week: as promised the Michals completed the optional skinny over the swamp in A River Runs Through It South! Which line will you ride in the Westside Wheelup?
See you on the trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder
