Here like many other places, the history of trails is that most are unofficial. As the sport matured and WORCA started advocating building and maintaining those trails became legit. But we still have builders doing things unpermitted. And by and large, those trails are as well built or better than official trails. But they are pretty much black and double black. I really don’t have any issues with this type of building. The permit process takes far too long than it should. It took over five years to get a permit to construct a sequence of intermediate trails adjacent to the Cheakamus Lake road. The forest there is second growth and had seen so called fuel management aka logging along most the length. It is a fantastic addition to the trail inventory. No idea why it took five years though. That’s one reason why so called rogue trails exist. And as the sport inevitably grows with e-bikes and the general popularity of bikes too, we need to look forward, way forward and start to think about the future. More riding requires more trails and more maintenance and more parking and other infrastructure. Or we start thinking about ways to slow growth and simply make things stable with no growth. Or rather than making more trails in a given area we spread out where possible.
In my old age I’ve become kind of anti growth. The politicians calling for more growth more growth only growing the economy and population is good. I think I see that starting to slowly change with young people though. Rather than "what’s the largest home I can afford" is perhaps starting to be "what’s the smallest place I can comfortably live with" .
Oct. 26, 2023, 9:21 a.m. - Andy Eunson
Here like many other places, the history of trails is that most are unofficial. As the sport matured and WORCA started advocating building and maintaining those trails became legit. But we still have builders doing things unpermitted. And by and large, those trails are as well built or better than official trails. But they are pretty much black and double black. I really don’t have any issues with this type of building. The permit process takes far too long than it should. It took over five years to get a permit to construct a sequence of intermediate trails adjacent to the Cheakamus Lake road. The forest there is second growth and had seen so called fuel management aka logging along most the length. It is a fantastic addition to the trail inventory. No idea why it took five years though. That’s one reason why so called rogue trails exist. And as the sport inevitably grows with e-bikes and the general popularity of bikes too, we need to look forward, way forward and start to think about the future. More riding requires more trails and more maintenance and more parking and other infrastructure. Or we start thinking about ways to slow growth and simply make things stable with no growth. Or rather than making more trails in a given area we spread out where possible. In my old age I’ve become kind of anti growth. The politicians calling for more growth more growth only growing the economy and population is good. I think I see that starting to slowly change with young people though. Rather than "what’s the largest home I can afford" is perhaps starting to be "what’s the smallest place I can comfortably live with" .