IMBA Canada BC Rep Blog

I know some of you have seen this document since its inception of October 2006 but many of you haven’t. Trying to find it otherwise on the hinternet will prove frustrating so here it is and I have posted on my Links page.

Mark your calendar as Duncan, BC will be the next provincial visit of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew October 23-26, 2008. Trail specialists will be IMBA’s Anna Laxague, Jason Wells and Moxy.

*Updated 24/09/08: The trail work will be on Cobble Hill so if you are interested in attending contact Tara Altimas at tealtimas@hotmail.com in Duncan.

Here’s their bio:

Anna Laxague and Jason Wells

Anna Laxague and Jason Wells hail from the Pacific Northwest (Laxague is from Truckee, CA and Wells is from Port Angeles, WA). They bring a unique combination of professional experience to the program — both have worked as school teachers and as guides in a variety of outdoor endeavors including mountain biking, climbing, kayaking and rafting. They’re also committed volunteers who have logged hundreds of hours building trails and performing outreach work with a host of public agencies. They worked as a team running a kayaking school in Hood River, OR, and will hopefully find some time to paddle a few rivers on their way around the country, in addition to riding as many trails as possible.

A long-term planning effort for Mt Fromme reached conclusion this week when the district council voted unanimously in favour of moving ahead with a new management plan. Mt Fromme is one of the Shore’s most famous riding locations and is located right on the edge of the city. Many of the trails are world famous and extremely difficult.

In general the results are positive for mountain biking could be considered a milestone globally. The Fromme trail system has long been very lightly managed and nearly all the trails unauthorized. This helps brings their management to a new level.

An important document is part of the plan. It is called the Fromme Mountain Trail Classification Study (170 pages). It was written by a consulting team including Keystone Environmental and Bear Environmental and included some people we know like Dave Diplock and Stewart Spooner. This document contains trail construction and management recommendations for every trail in the area. It has a custom trail difficulty rating system, trail guidelines, guidelines for wooden TTFs, and more. It is very detailed and will become one of the key reports that informs the body of knowledge known generically as Best Practices. It is especially detailed in the area of TTF construction guidelines. It draws heavily from Troy Scott Parker’s book and Trail Solutions. Like any document or book, it isn’t perfect, but it is well done and probally the most detailed document to date on wooden TTFs.

Download it here: http://www.dnv.org/article.asp?c=988

Pretty much every newspaper and TV news is running stories about the subject.

NSMB.com

http://dev.nsmb.com/page/s/2542/nv-council-has-a-plan

North Shore Outlook

http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vancouver/northshoreoutlook/news/24273379.html

The Straight 

http://www.straight.com/article-152794/bureaucrat-suggests-new-way-maintain-mountainbike-trails-mt-fromme

North Shore News

http://www.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=bbf5d1dd-48d3-493f-a75b-dac20dd92564