Digging for Gold

As part of its regional Community Contributions Program, MEC is now one of the partners of the NSMBA’s Trail Adoption Plan (or TAP). The TAP was set up to ensure some older trails got some much-needed attention. The system is easy: a local business provides money and volunteers to do some trail maintenance on an assigned trail. In our case, MEC donated $2500 and provided volunteers for four trail days to fix up TNT/Cabin on Mount Seymour.

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I had the chance to participate in the first trail day back in July. We were under the guidance of Tyler Wilkes, a seasoned trail builder now employed with Metro Vancouver. It was my first-ever trail building outing and I had a great time. I love the fatigue that comes from a day of hard manual labour, especially when you see significant improvements between the “before” and the “after”. Even though the trail needs work in quite a few spots, we focused our efforts on two sections. Half of our group worked on the junction where TNT meets Cabin, rerouting the original trail which had become severely eroded and no longer had proper drainage. The end result may not look like much (pictures never do justice!), but it is a drastic improvement and it will be much better after enough riders come through and after a full winter of wear.

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The second section we worked on presented some gnarly roots and rocks that needed to be filled in where the soil had eroded. A fallen cedar tree provided the wood for us to build cradles that we then filled with rocks and “Gold”. Gold is that awesome dirt trail builders love. You have to look for it (and did we ever!), digging pits under fallen trees or mossy mounds. Gold packs down well and doesn’t wash away with rain. Once thing I found really cool is that we used whatever materials Mother Nature put at our disposal. No carrying in dirt or wood. You use what you find.

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I decided to give the trail a try last weekend and I have to admit that the best sections were the ones we worked on. TNT still needs a fair amount of TLC, but it’s already way better than it was. Some of my colleagues went out for a second trail day in August and we’ll have two more in September. I was stunned to see how long it took 10 people to fix two short sections. You can believe that I came away with incredible respect and gratitude for trail builders. We ride the trails day in and day out, but how many of us take a moment to thank the people who gave up a day of riding to create this awesome playground? That being said, thanks to all the trail builders out there. Image may be NSFW.
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Wondering what other projects MEC is funding? We’ve got a national partnership with the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) and we supported almost two dozen cycling-related projects so far this year. If you want to know exactly how we’re supporting your local cycling community, check in with the Sustainability Coordinator at your MEC store.

So, have you given up some of your precious free time to do some volunteer work to support your favourite outdoor activity? If so, what did you do?

© All photos by Berglind Hafsteinsdottir

Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.