Trails Update: July 15, 2022
More Power!
The Tuesday Dig Nights (and Women’s Wednesdays!) have moved literal mountains so far this season on the new Flashback trail in Cheakamus. While most of the heavy lifting has been done…grubbing the organics away, exposing stumps and bedrock…some more technically advanced trailwork needs to be addressed for the final trail to flow. This week, the trail crew brought in the power pullers to muscle pesky stumps out of the line. Some fought back pretty hard (nothing like the Whipped Cream 3-hour stump though…) but ultimately, we created the space needed for long smooth turns through this relatively flat section. We bridged a creek, and next week we’ll be doing some “finishing” work: shape and pack the tread, emphasize berms and open drains in the right spots. Don’t hold your breath for new dirt to ride though… looks like dry season is here and Flashback will need significant rain before we can open new sections.
Meanwhile, in Comfortably Numb, Benoit and crew continued north from Yummy Numby armouring and bridging seasonally muddy sections. Benoit doesn’t like for any parts of a good tree to go to waste, so he used the “leftovers” to rip a skinny for an old school optional line.
In other distant places, the Jane Lakes network has been cleared of deadfall. We found some evidence of last fall’s atmospheric rivers around Jane Lake: logs had piled up against one bridge and another floated out of position when the monsoons elevated the lake’s high water line. Blueberries won’t be ready for another month or so and the mosquitoes were apocalyptic.
I continued my pond crawl looking for Whistler’s most prolific mosquito factory by trying to access Screaming Cat Lake (a short detour on the way to Howler). The snow stopped me at 1500m but it did not deter the little vampires. Definitely bad on the bug scale.
The Mystic to LESS loop is almost clear (of snow) if you’re willing to donate some blood to even more voracious insects. The Alpine Ranger program has started this week, hopefully they are well stocked with repellent…
Choose your battles wisely!
See you on the trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder
