The Canmore Trail Alliance (CTA) has begun work on the first of three planned projects at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
On Thursday (June 9) volunteers, along with volunteer crew leader Greg Thompson and Canmore Nordic Centre trail specialist Chris Anderson, participated in the CTA’s second trail day since their launch in May, constructing single track connectors.
The group plans to hold trail days on Thursday evenings (6-9p.m.) and Saturday mornings (9a.m.-12p.m.).
The CTA, which is coordinated through the Friends of Kananaskis Country, is dedicated to the creation of an integrated trail system in the Canmore area, as well as the maintenance of current trails.
Much of the work the CTA will do will be volunteer-orientated and any new trails or trail maintenance to be conducted are based largely on community feedback.
“I like getting feedback. If it was in my backyard maybe I wouldn’t ask for it, but this is everyone’s backyard,” said Chris Anderson, a trail specialist at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
The CTA hopes volunteers will come out to give back to the community, but also to have their say in any decisions to be made during the trail building process.
“I think it’s great,” said Alex Fleming, a maintenance worker at the Canmore Nordic Centre. “I’ve been riding here for the last four years and we’ve always been saying we need some more trails or to make some changes to some trails so now to be a part of it, and to getting the whole community and the CTA, and CAMBA and all the bike groups out to kind of come together and start building trails, it’s great.”
“This is one of the first opportunities we’ve seen for local residents, that aren’t part of an actual trail building association, to come out and volunteer their time,” said Dave Preissl, who helped build trail on Thursday.
“I always want to give back to the mountain biking community, you know you put time on the trails, you beat the trails up. You want to put a little time into your local community and the trails you ride.”
“I’ve been riding these trails for two decades now and I’m just trying to give back to the community and help it out,” said volunteer Craig McLeran. “The more trails there are to ride the better it is.”
The 2016 projects include single track connectors and a Long Loop trail featuring a more difficult blue-black upper route and an easier green lower route which will extend to the edge of the CNC’s property.
“The green will be the priority first,” said Anderson. “We want to get people to the edge of our property. There’s amazing sites, there’s amazing views out there.
The blue and black, because it will be a more technically designed trail, it will take longer to build.”
The decision to create the Long Loop trail was largely fuelled by feedback from trail users in the area.
“They say we’ve got a lot of medium level blues but we don’t have anything higher and we don’t have anything lower,” said Anderson.
On Thursday’s trail night the volunteers began work on one of the single track connecters to be built in the area.
The CNC has “lots of great single track, however, they are not all interconnected, and often require riding on ski trails to link up with other single track trails.”
Although not a major issue in the summer months, the increasing popularity of fat biking in the winter can lead to conflicts between winter bikers and skiers on the ski trails.
The third project the CTA will undertake at the Canmore Nordic Centre will be the maintenance of the current trails.
“They can, perhaps, change over the course of time from race events, weather events,” said Anderson. Some of our green trails have transitioned into maybe a little bit harder than they should be and they need some maintenance and love too.”
“The nice thing about CTA is hopefully it’s going to get the trail runner and biker involved and to give back as well. To get and to give back.”
