The head of Nakusp’s cross-country ski club says a ski trail in the forest isn’t that much different from a house — after 30 years, it’s going to need some maintenance work.
Kathy Smith says the club has spent $17,000 and hundreds of person-hours this year putting its trails back into shape.
“We’ve been doing work over the years, but this is the biggest project we have undertaken,” says Smith, president of the Arrow Lakes Cross Country Ski Club.
The 7.6-kilometer track was first constructed back in 1988. After three decades, work had to be done above, below, and on top of the trails.
“There is quite a bit of use by other people off-season because it is a multi-use area,” says Smith. “It’s used by cyclists, motorbikers, horseback riders, and others. Then there’s rain and stream erosion.”
Trees have also slowly grown over parts of the trail, reducing or delaying snow accumulation. Danger trees had to be removed or cut back. Ditches have slowly filled in, and culverts got clogged. That’s not to mention building a new outhouse and repairing the existing warm-up shack.
In places where the soil has been washed away, the club has had to get creative.
“What we did this year is, as a test, we brought in 14 dump-truck loads of pole peelings, and spread them over rocky areas to help insulate ground so it doesn’t melt out,” she said.
“And if it does melt, we have bark chips to ski on, not rock. In other places, we have been putting carpet on places to cover bedrock.”
About 10 people were hired to do much of the work, and local contractors hired or donated time to support the club. They also hired consultants to analyze where a stream crosses the trail, and another to ensure their work won’t affect fish habitat.
The club’s biggest maintenance year ever also had to be compressed into a few short weeks in the spring and fall, after the back-country was closed during the height of the forest-fire season.
“There were a lot of little pieces,” she says. “It’s not a lot of money, but a lot of little pieces. And we want to carry this work into the future. We’re looking at another project next year, or the year after, to kind of build off what we have going.”
About 400 people signed in when using the trails last winter, though Smith is sure the actual number of users is much higher. She says people using the trails this year will notice a difference.
“You will see improvement,” she says. “It can help extend the season. Last year we did some work on the ditches and culverts. So when we did get an early season rain or melt, it’s caught by the ditch and not coming across the trail to melt it out, where there’s not a lot of snow to start with.”
Smith says in the future the club will work with the Nakusp and Area Community Forest Inc (NACFOR) to identify problem and overgrown areas and to remove mature trees along the edge of the trail.
“They want to do logging in the area, which we think could be quite beneficial to the trails because the trails are growing in,” she says.
All this work couldn’t have been done without the help of the Columbia Basin Trust, the RDCK’s Rec Commission No. 4, and Area K director Paul Peterson says Smith.
“We really appreciate working with them and the support we have been given,” she says.
The Arrow Lakes Cross Country Ski Club is holding its annual general meeting on Monday, Oct. 30 at Selkirk College at 7 p.m.
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