By 11pm boredom had set in at the mud bog and the crowd of graduate-something’s had become one collective drunken stupor no longer capable of navigating a truck stuck in mud. Simply by coincidence, programming interest had waned in the RV club and the generators were silenced, which required the outdoor flood lights to be shut off.
It was then, and only then that it was dark enough for our next camping adventure.
Five campsites down the drive, someone started a chainsaw to buck up some firewood. Now I’m speculating on this since starting a chainsaw at night, and to be bold enough to do it in a public campground where people including kids were trying to sleep indicated a person, with their friends, who are so stupid that it would certainly qualify them to be dangerously insane.
This situation I chose not to investigate.
Needless to say, there was no policing at the campground, and it was the worst experience that I have ever had camping and to top it off, I had paid a fee for the whole experience.
This campground is not an exception, province-wide we have no capacity to protect our wildland areas and in particular our outdoor recreation areas. We charge fees, we study and we make rules, in fact in 2007, the province approved amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act that made it illegal for operators of vehicles such as dirt bikes, ATVs and four-by-fours to cause environmental damage on Crown land but such laws are useless when perpetrators can’t be identified and caught.
What’s most disturbing is the culture of disregard under the banner of “fun” where our communities often turn a blind eye because some of the lawmakers themselves own an ATV and perhaps even organize their own weekend bush party’s.
Last summer Gerhard Blenk politely stopped two dirt bikers to tell them about environmental damage being caused to his Wilden development in Kelowna‘s North Glenmore area, he was punched in the nose.
Wilden‘s sales and marketing manager, Brent Couves told JP Squire of the Kelowna Courier that Blenk reported the assault to Kelowna RCMP, but the dirt bikers were long gone
Wilden has spent “tens of thousands of dollars” erecting fences and moving large rocks to block dirt bike trails in an unsuccessful attempt to preserve environmentally sensitive areas, Couves said.
The damage is especially bad at protected wetlands scattered around the rolling hillsides between Clifton Road to the west and Glenmore Road to the east.
“It‘s frustrating because, ultimately, these are public parklands and they are being torn up,” said Couves, adding Wilden hydro-seeded some of the damaged areas, but dirt bikers returned and caused more damage.
The damage only got worse when Wilden recently opened another road access off Rio Drive/Clifton Road. “It‘s a catch-22 because we want people to drive up there, but it also opens it up to dirt bikers,” said Couves.
The damage will likely only stop when there are enough new residents of Wilden that they report the illegal activity, he added.
As Wilden officials try to increase the public‘s awareness of the ongoing problem they are in good company. Members of the Kelowna Nordic Cross-Country Ski Club discovered ATVs have been ripping up meadows along the High Rim Trail in Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, east of Winfield.
The club has invested significant time and resources, in fact three summers, restoring 55 kms of the trail from Highway 33 at Philpott Road to Cosens Bay in Kalamalka Provincial Park. This is a significant project that links a trail from the North Okanagan to the Kettle Valley Railway trail network.
During this period, trail restoration work was completed and signs were installed at trailheads and intersections crossing forestry service roads. Volunteers will have to deal with ongoing maintenance to keep the trail open to hikers, snowshoers, runners, cyclists, backpackers and equestrians.
In June and July of this year volunteers also marked and cleared 18 km of the Okanagan Highlands Trail which starts from the west side of the Nordic Club parking lot and continues along the Snowy Hilton snowshoe trail and passes by Browne Lake in the north. The trail then continues along Grouse Creek to the Mission Creek where it joins up with the High Rim Trailhead.
Also over the past year the club compiled GPS points on the trail with the help of Tolko staff, they then worked together with BC Backroad Mapbooks staff to create a detailed color topo map for a brochure. Backroad Mapbooks also designed the 11 x 17 pamphlet. A grant was received from the Central Okanagan Foundation and 10,000 brochures have been printed for distribution in the community. The brochures will be distributed to recreation centers, tourist bureaus, Chamber of Commerce and sports centers.
The High Rim Trail is funded totally through donations received from Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Valley First Financial Group, TD Friends of the Environment and Mountain Equipment Co-op.
Good work by volunteers keeping a hiking trail open is quite a task when one considers the annual impacts of nature, but it’s a bigger task when you throw a few boneheads into the mix.
During a recent hike, club members found damage from ATVs, four-by-fours and cattle so severe on parts of the trail, they fear some of the area‘s rare wildflowers will not return for decades – if ever.
Tolko Industries Ltd. offered to have a crew install boulders to stop ATV access. And ski club members will also work with government agencies to try to stop the damage.
“Otherwise, the problem with ATVs damaging our hiking trails will continue,” said club spokeswoman Alice Hargreaves.
But just how much help will Hargreaves and the club receive?
Presently the provincial government is developing a province-wide trail strategy which is supposed to set out a structure by which trails can be developed and managed. The Draft Recreation Trail Strategy for British Columbia describes a set of broad strategic, provincial level actions needed to develop a sustainable trail program in BC.
The problem with this development process is that few people who actually build trails new about this planning process. In fact when one examines the provincial organizations participating in the planning the majority of participants are from bodies representing mechanized travel, like snowmobilers, and other off road types.
This is enough to make any trail builder nervous, but add the fact that public meetings are now rotating around the province without proper notice. The Okanagan meeting was in Penticton on November 26th with no real notification to the public.
But you can still catch one January 20th in Kamloops. Feedback gained from visiting ten communities across BC will determine if the province is on the right track.
Hopefully the trail clubs throughout the region will turnout, but the feedback that I’ve received on meetings thus far is that snowmobilers, ATV clubs and the like, are better organized than people on foot.
Clearly what needs to happen is we need to create a tail council that begins to help outdoor clubs manage trails and combat negligence, we simply can’t depend on the provincial government or there good intentions.
Motorized off road will continue to damage environments with no regard, Summerland has struggled with mud-bogging and other destructive activities in its watershed for the past two years.
Mayor David Gregory told the Daily Courier that the district put rock barriers at the head of Garnet Lake, but four-by-four operators are getting around them and are still mud-bogging.
“All our signs are down in the Fur Brigade Linear Park. We‘re not putting them up again because they get trashed right away. There are more ATV trails being created up there. It‘s unbelievable, unreal how much damage is occurring up there,” he said.
“The government is going to have to step in and create some designated dirt bike/ATV spots, and then they are not allowed in other areas.
“These people think they have the freedom to go anywhere up there. The whole thing is out of control.”
(30)
Don Elzer writes and comments about the future, current affairs, lifestyle and the natural world. He is a director of the Watershed Intelligence Network publishers of The Monster Guide, which can be found at www.themonsterguide.com
He can also be reached by email at: treks@uniserve.com
