The annual maintenance of ELF’s many trails (including the 9-kilometre Health Trail) is an enormous undertaking. Each year we owe a debt of gratitude to the unseen people who do all that work, ensuring that the trails are clear for hiking. The trail clearing work this year is more difficult than in previous years because of the extraordinary number of trees that fell during last fall’s windstorms.
Wilderness trails on the Sunshine Coast need regular maintenance. The mountain bike trails are regularly cleared and maintained by the Coast Mountain Bike Trails Association (CMBTA). However, there is no group assigned to providing regular maintenance to the vast network of wilderness hiking trails. ELF makes an effort to maintain its hiking trails. However, ELF does not have a regular trail-clearing team and does not have the resources of large organizations like CMBTA.
Because of that, our Elphinstone Hiking Group this winter is making a special effort to pitch in and help clear away some of the trees and other debris that have fallen across the trails.
Our thanks to all the volunteers who answered the call during the week of January 21, 22 & 23, including a special ‘thank you’ to Harold, whose exceptional chainsaw skills and hard work got us through many large logs that had fallen across the Health Trail. We were also grateful for Marcus and Alva’s carpentry skills in getting the footbridge over Clack Creek rebuilt (by utilizing the log that had fallen across the original bridge). Thanks also to Ron, Bruce, Sandra, Gregory, Kevin, Ross, and Corinna, who all came out and helped, as well as Sue Power, who greeted us at the powerlines on Wednesday with a bag of sandwiches for the whole crew!
We’ll be on the trails next week as well (Febuary 4, 5 & 6), and we’re hopeful for another good turnout of volunteers. As a result of this initiative, we expect to help ELF clear as many of these trails as possible.
We’re most grateful to the volunteers who come and provide medium-duty trail maintenance, such as clearing brush, removing branches, filling in holes and building makeshift steps on the steep sections. We’re also most grateful to the skilled trail-builders who take charge of the heavy jobs, such as cutting through the huge logs that have fallen across the trails. The tools we use for the medium-duty work are rakes, shovels, picks, loppers, and any other tools that help make the trails good for hiking. We have a lot of those tools already; however, people who volunteer may wish to bring their own tools (and a pair of gloves).
This trail-clearing work is important because it makes it possible for our hikers and many others to come out and enjoy these ancient forests, which, we believe, are the Sunshine Coast’s greatest resource.