Well, were to begin? I guess I generally agree with a bunch of things people are saying here, but also think that as much in life, there's a lot more nuance to most things and they are never as binary as we'd likely prefer. I 'generally' agree that trails are overall less impactful than resource extraction or development, so it can be rather infuriating at the hoops and processes trail development proposals have to go through given the impact differential, at least talking from a Provincial Crown land perspective. That isn't to say those processes are wrong, but they are typically inefficient, cumbersome, time consuming, and in some cases I've seen what I'd consider an unfair allocation of processing resources to certain places over others which leads to a LOT of frustration and animosity regionally.
I also think that generally speaking unsanctioned trails shouldn't automatically be attached to "bad" trails as Jerry mentioned, we can all likely name off dozens of well built, safe, actively maintained, yet unsanctioned trails that other than not being authorized, do not negatively impact the environment or other land use considerations. Most of the riding public has no idea as to the complexity of trail legality and status on most of our regional and local networks across the Province. In Whistler, for example, even though a significant amount of trails are maintained by WORCA through support with the RMOW, many of the trails people would consider 'legal' actually are not, ditto Squamish and many other places. The general riding public, also probably really doesn't GAF one way or the other as they look at them as a homogeneous resource.
That being said, I think there is also a divergence between thoughtful and well considered unsanctioned building, versus what we are seeing in some places, and I'm going to pick on Squamish here, like Diamondhead or Valleycliffe, or Alice Lake since I live here. In those places there is zero consideration for other trails or the environment, as we continue to see more and more trails jammed in close proximity to, over crossing and overlapping, other trails. In the case of Diamondhead we just see a continual procession of new, indistinct, generic fall line trails that get put in lined up one after another, they last a few months until the rains come when they quickly turn into fall line hub deep ruts with babyheads. Rarely does it seem that anyone take the time to pick a more sustainable line, little to no active maintenance, it seems rare that they are cleaned up and tweaked/improved them as they develop, no one fixes drainage issues. They just go over 20-40 m and build another one, taking up more of the forest, creating more sediment erosion, and making mountain bikers look like selfish assholes destroying the forest for their kicks.
IMO, the sad part is that most of these lines are indistinguishable from one another and all had the potential to be much more than mediocre copies of the other trails, if a bit more effort and care was put into line selection, water management, and active maintenance. BUT, in this day and age of instant gratification quantity over quality seems to be the name of the game. I think that is a good segue into the fact that there is an unwillingness, or lack of caring at all, about the land people choose to build on. Finding out ownership status, looking at environmental considerations, what are the historical and cultural uses of the area? Most people 'building' just want to quickly slash in a line to shred and I think that's one of those mountain biking culture things that many think is 'normal' given the number of high quality unsanctioned builds as mentioned above, a lot of newer 'builders' just don't put that much effort into thinking about, and those are the things that are reflecting on mountain biking negatively as a whole in some areas.
Have to wrap this up for now, but I think that leads into the motivation of building. I personally always look at the landscape, network, and how it interacts and think about what kind of trail development can add to the network, make new connections, or improve the flow between trails, how do you make the network interesting and satisfying to use? Then looking at land use, proximity to other trails and neighbourhoods, what's access like, how will people use this, will it create new use issues, etc. These are the boring things that I think aren't really being considered or thought about in the quest for new and more. But they are the things that prevent many of the other issues we've been talking about. There are lots of places to build taking these things into consideration, but they require inquisitiveness, exploring, getting off the beaten path, and not just going where others already have.
This doesn't even begin to touch on the issue of First Nation's rights and title/cultural issues, private property trespass for use and trail building, and the general public's insistence that they are owed continued access to other peoples property for personal recreation.
Ultimately I tend to agree with Adrian's comment "humans have a very hard time understanding scarcity and our personal impact on the world." Tragedy of the commons playing out in real time.
Oct. 30, 2023, 9:31 a.m. - Todd Hellinga
Well, were to begin? I guess I generally agree with a bunch of things people are saying here, but also think that as much in life, there's a lot more nuance to most things and they are never as binary as we'd likely prefer. I 'generally' agree that trails are overall less impactful than resource extraction or development, so it can be rather infuriating at the hoops and processes trail development proposals have to go through given the impact differential, at least talking from a Provincial Crown land perspective. That isn't to say those processes are wrong, but they are typically inefficient, cumbersome, time consuming, and in some cases I've seen what I'd consider an unfair allocation of processing resources to certain places over others which leads to a LOT of frustration and animosity regionally. I also think that generally speaking unsanctioned trails shouldn't automatically be attached to "bad" trails as Jerry mentioned, we can all likely name off dozens of well built, safe, actively maintained, yet unsanctioned trails that other than not being authorized, do not negatively impact the environment or other land use considerations. Most of the riding public has no idea as to the complexity of trail legality and status on most of our regional and local networks across the Province. In Whistler, for example, even though a significant amount of trails are maintained by WORCA through support with the RMOW, many of the trails people would consider 'legal' actually are not, ditto Squamish and many other places. The general riding public, also probably really doesn't GAF one way or the other as they look at them as a homogeneous resource. That being said, I think there is also a divergence between thoughtful and well considered unsanctioned building, versus what we are seeing in some places, and I'm going to pick on Squamish here, like Diamondhead or Valleycliffe, or Alice Lake since I live here. In those places there is zero consideration for other trails or the environment, as we continue to see more and more trails jammed in close proximity to, over crossing and overlapping, other trails. In the case of Diamondhead we just see a continual procession of new, indistinct, generic fall line trails that get put in lined up one after another, they last a few months until the rains come when they quickly turn into fall line hub deep ruts with babyheads. Rarely does it seem that anyone take the time to pick a more sustainable line, little to no active maintenance, it seems rare that they are cleaned up and tweaked/improved them as they develop, no one fixes drainage issues. They just go over 20-40 m and build another one, taking up more of the forest, creating more sediment erosion, and making mountain bikers look like selfish assholes destroying the forest for their kicks. IMO, the sad part is that most of these lines are indistinguishable from one another and all had the potential to be much more than mediocre copies of the other trails, if a bit more effort and care was put into line selection, water management, and active maintenance. BUT, in this day and age of instant gratification quantity over quality seems to be the name of the game. I think that is a good segue into the fact that there is an unwillingness, or lack of caring at all, about the land people choose to build on. Finding out ownership status, looking at environmental considerations, what are the historical and cultural uses of the area? Most people 'building' just want to quickly slash in a line to shred and I think that's one of those mountain biking culture things that many think is 'normal' given the number of high quality unsanctioned builds as mentioned above, a lot of newer 'builders' just don't put that much effort into thinking about, and those are the things that are reflecting on mountain biking negatively as a whole in some areas. Have to wrap this up for now, but I think that leads into the motivation of building. I personally always look at the landscape, network, and how it interacts and think about what kind of trail development can add to the network, make new connections, or improve the flow between trails, how do you make the network interesting and satisfying to use? Then looking at land use, proximity to other trails and neighbourhoods, what's access like, how will people use this, will it create new use issues, etc. These are the boring things that I think aren't really being considered or thought about in the quest for new and more. But they are the things that prevent many of the other issues we've been talking about. There are lots of places to build taking these things into consideration, but they require inquisitiveness, exploring, getting off the beaten path, and not just going where others already have. This doesn't even begin to touch on the issue of First Nation's rights and title/cultural issues, private property trespass for use and trail building, and the general public's insistence that they are owed continued access to other peoples property for personal recreation. Ultimately I tend to agree with Adrian's comment "humans have a very hard time understanding scarcity and our personal impact on the world." Tragedy of the commons playing out in real time.