Trail Maintenance Days
First SORCA Trail day for 2013, Saturday April 20th
We’re having a great spring so far and the trails are seeing a lot of traffic. Come join us for our first project of the season this coming Saturday, April 20th. We’ll meet up at 9:00am, a few km’s up the Mamquam fsr, where the road turns left over towards the bottom of the Powerhouse Plunge. From there we’ll convoy over to the bottom of the Plunge. Bring work gloves, plenty of water and maybe even a light lunch to keep you going. Details will be announced the day of, but those who join in will get a sneek-peek at the “PowerHood” connector.
Last year SORCA and the Squamish trails had the biggest volunteer year ever. Over 1000 hours were put back into our trails, all by hard working volunteers like yourselves.
2010 is going to be a crucial year for our trails. With the official recognition of some trails through the Forest and Range Practices Act (Section 57), we’re moving into a new era of trails being recognized by government as an asset worth protecting, something that’s been dreamed of for years.
On the flipside, though, many of our favourite riding areas are under continued threat. Irresponsible shuttling during heavy rains, rotting stunts that are liabilities, and enchroaching development are all contributing towards our network’s degradation. By volunteering with SORCA you can ensure that we offset these negative impacts, and keep our trails in mint shape.
After all, without trails, there’s no riding. Working on the trails is also an easy, fun way to get involved in the biking community and meet new like-minded people. Check this page or the SORCA announcements to keep up on where and when we’re working. See you out there…
Safety is something we take very seriously on the trail, especially when working on them. Things can go wrong fast, but with some preventative steps we can ensure that incidents are minimalized, and when something does go wrong, we’re properly equipped to handle it.
Some tips to help keep us all safe:
- Try to join us for coffees before we start work, this way we can get you to sign in, and provide us with your emergecy contact information. We also like to use this time to give a quick safety briefing, to identify the first aid attendant(s), the location of the first aid kit(s), and to identify the jobsite location.
- Please come properly equipped, with enough water, proper work clothes (supportive footwear, gloves, long sleeves), and sunscreen if required.
- Please do not bring your chainsaw or other power tools. Only certified and properly protected persons are allowed to operate power tools at the trail days. Most of the time there will not be any saw work happening onsite, but if there is we will identify who is going to be operating, where/when they will be, and how far away you should be.
- Be aware of hazardous danger trees. Standing rotten trees, trees leaning more than 15%, and high winds are all something we should be concious of at all times in the forest.
- We provide temporary signage to close the trail to bike traffic, or if safe, ask that they yield to the volunteers
- Please sign out when the day is done, so that we know you got out safely, and we don’t go searching for you.
