‘Stone Ridge’ Trail Opening and Q&A with Rob Pheonix
The community of SORCA would like to thank and congratulate the hard-working volunteer team of Rob Phoenix, Chris Wright, Mike Reed, Alistair McCrone and a number of other volunteer hands for their recent completion of ‘STONE RIDGE’. This intermediate (blue) trail is a fantastic addition to the Alice Lake/Highlands network of trails. Rob and SORCA received Squamish Nation and Crown approval for the trail. The builders followed SORCA’s newly established ‘Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) Lands Trail Building Policy’ and utilized SORCA’s Volunteer Trail Maintenance and Builder Support Policy to assist with select building expenses
Q&A with Rob!
Q: What interests you in general about trail building?
A: It might sound kind of funny, but it gets me off my bike and into the solitude of the woods. It’s a pretty nice place to be especially since you are building something for the community to enjoy for years to come. It’s good for the heart and soul as it can take you away from the daily grind. I’d say the satisfaction I get from the building is 30% mental, 30% artistic and creative, and 40% physical…you get ripped, and the chicks dig it!
Q: Have you built or assisted in building any other trails?
A: I assisted in a number of other trails with a few other local builders. When we first moved here, one of the guys who framed our house was working on a local trail called Somewhere Over There and basically recruited me to help him on the trail. After Plumb Smugglers got logged, I was able to get in on that re-build with a couple of guys. From there, that led me to build Tazer’s Alternate (built as a ride-around for BC Bike Race as Rupert was too hard for racers from the previous year). It was named after our German Shepherd who had passed away that fall.
I guess the trail that stands out most for me is Leave of Absence. I’m really proud of it and happy that it has been so well received. I really worked hard at getting that trail right in terms of grade, water run-off, and providing one of the few blue-rated trails in that area. It’s nice to see that it’s a Top 50 trail globally for Trail Forks user ratings when you consider there are over 200,000 trails on Trail Forks.
Q: Do you have a particular style of trail building?
A: I’ll always build stuff that I can ride and that requires low maintenance.
Q: What have you learned from past trails that you have applied to Strone Ridge?
A: With the evolution of bikes today compared to 30 years ago when I started riding and the number of riders that come through the Alice Lake area, our trails get pounded so I try to focus on the sustainability of the build so it doesn’t require much maintenance. I doubt there’s a builder in town who could say they nailed the trail right from the get-go. There’s always some level of tweaking required after the trail is open and before it has been ridden enough to be fully established.
When I built Leave of Absence, I followed the IMBA and Whistler building standards, and while building the twin bridges near the bottom, I used untreated cedar planks that a sponsor had given me for the build. At that time, I had reached out to a Whistler builder about the thickness of bridge decking and I can’t remember exactly what he said but it was something to the effect of “don’t move earth too far”. So, with the building of Stone Ridge, I was very careful to pick my line in terms of grade, and dirt and rock accessibility. We didn’t touch or haul a bucket of dirt for almost four months because of the particular route I chose, thus we were able to smash out this trail pretty quickly.
One thing I learned from building Leave of Absence was that although it was amazing to have the community come out and help with the build, having a smaller crew for the Stone Ridge build made it more efficient.
Q: Who built the Stone Ridge sign?
A: Chris Wright, who is an integral part of the build and has been out there almost as much as me. He took on the challenge of designing and creating the trail sign. It’s a fantastic creation themed after the amount of rock work, rock ridges, and bedrock on the trail. He even added a little “Flintstones” flare to it for good measure. Aside from working on the trail, he was more than happy to do the sign as he just wanted to do something nice for the community.
Q: How do you name your trails?
A: I don’t have a prescriptive way to name trails. About ¾ of the way through building Leave of Absence, I remember having coffee with my wife one morning and we were chatting about what to name the trail. She just looked at me and said, “Well, it’s pretty obvious. You took a leave of absence from work so why not name it Leave of Absence?”
I recognized that with the current trail and it being a good progressive trail for intermediate and younger riders, and that with the new MOU in place, I did not want to name the new trail anything too suggestive. Stone Ridge, as it turned out, seemed a pretty easy name selection simply based on the amount of rock throughout the trail. We literally moved tonnes, and I mean tonnes, of rock by hand and there are about seven or eight rock whale backs on the trail.
Q: Roughly how many hours were invested into this build from all builders?
A: I did not log it this time like I did with LOA but I estimate it’s somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 hours.
Q: Have you started thinking about the next trail you would like to build?
A: I haven’t actually…one trail at a time.
Q: Why should builders invest the time for necessary approvals?
A: You want to get authorizations to protect your own liability. I think the day will come when a trail builder could get into serious trouble for building an unauthorized trail on Crown, private, or otherwise owned land. I get that a lot of our trails are mostly unsanctioned as they were built a long time ago, and I love all those trails, but going forward in today's day, there’s a higher standard of build required with the higher volume of bikes/trail users. With this higher number of users, the probability of issues is higher – it’s just going to take one person to hire a lawyer to sue someone when they get hurt on a rogue build. So it’s silly not to invest time to get the necessary approvals in place to cover your butt, and besides, it’s free to apply.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add related to Stone Ridge?
A: A lot of people may not know but for a few of us, and I’m sure probably some other builders as well, building a trail has a deeper meaning (mental, physical, and creative outlet). At the end of the build, it’s always satisfying to give back to the community in a way that so many people will enjoy.
