Editor:
The Jan. 15 edition of the Rocky Mountain Outlook included a page 21 letter to the editor which expressed concern about the “closing of the Moraine Lake Road to Park Visitors” related to the NorAm cross-country ski race last week.
As a member of the organizing team for this event, I would like to correct this piece of mis-information. Moraine Lake Road was never “closed” to recreational skiers – either before or during the race. The only restriction that occurred was on Wednesday and Thursday mornings (Jan. 14-15) when recreational skiers were asked, for a period of about 2.5 hours, not to use the ski tracks groomed for the race, but rather to ski on the left (east) side of the road in the groomed single track.
This restriction applied only to approximately 1.7 kilometres of the total groomed length of 9 km on Moraine Lake Road.
It is true that, between Jan. 6 and Jan. 15, other trails in the immediate area that were used for the race were closed for short periods of time (less than two hours) so that grooming and race operations could be carried out safely and without danger to recreational skiers.
RMO and other media have also carried stories that similarly contain misinformation about the Jan. 15 NorAm race, or about the proposal for a cross-country world cup race in March of 2016 (still under review by Parks Canada). Statements about plans for helicopter use and trail widening are simply not true – and do not reflect the facts in the documentation that has been presented to Parks Canada.
Discussion about the kinds of activities that should take place in national parks have been going on for decades, and it is important that such discussions continue with input from all stakeholders. But such discussions are only constructive when they are based on factual information – not on inaccurate assumptions or wild conjecture.
Ken Hewitt,
Assistant organizing commitee chair,
Alberta World Cup Society
