Progress Log

June 6, 2009 - meeting with Lindsay Durno and sign scouting

(Scott Nelson). I met with Lindsay Durno, the operations manager at Whistler Olympic Park. He was keen on doing some large map boards for the backcountry trailheads at the Biathlon Range and Beverley Creek Bridge, in the same style as the existing XC trail map boards. He suggested that he would be able to provide the stand structures if I could provide the signs. Trailhead signs like this would put me over the original budget, so I will be applying for some more funding from the federal government trails program. Lindsay gave me the contact info for the contractors that made the existing signs at WOP - Century signs in Squamish for fabrication and Tom Barret Ltd in Whistler for the mapping and design. After the meeting I hiked up the Rainbow-Madeley Trail to check out the junctions where the new trail up beverley creek crosses it. I identified suitable trees for trail signs at these junctions. I continued up the Beverley Creek route to see how bushy it was higher up. It turned out to be really easy going, as it was mostly swamp. Only one section about 50m long, the steep traverse over to the valley floor, needs brushing.

July 26, 2009 - Hanging Lake

(Scott Nelson and Sandra Nicol) We brought a chainsaw up the hanging lake route as far as the start of the open meadows that begin around 1250m. We cut all the large blowdowns between here and the upper logging road. Also did some considerable work on the worst of the dense patches of brushy young conifers around 1000m. This was my first time walking this route in summer conditions. It was hot and buggy, and there was more devils club than I've ever seen before. I guess that is part of the reason why the route skis so well in the winter. Another brushing day will be needed to clear from the shooting range to the logging road, as this section was definitely the worst of the bush (and it sees the least snow). I think this can wait until next summer, as VANOC might be causing all sorts of havoc in there for the Olympics.

September 7, 2009 - Beverley Creek

Thanks to Matthew Carroll, Phil Tomlinson, Shuyu Fan and Patrick Fan for coming out.  We walked the lower part of the Beverley Creek Trail, from the XC bridge over Beverley Creek to the small lake on the ridge between Beverley Creek and Madeley Creek - about 1.7km in all.  Once again, swampy terrain ruled the day, but fortunately this time the foliage was mostly skunk cabbage, deer fern and black huckleberry.  There was only a little devils club to contend with.  We cleared a few small patches of thicker brush and moved a dozen or so blowdowns off the route.  One more work day on the upper part of the trail should finish the clearing work for this summer.  We also made some adjustments to the route alignment, including figuring out and flagging the first few hundred meters up from the trailhead.  On my previous explorations in the area, I'd started further west (from Norwegian Woods trail) but I wanted the trailhead to be as close to the Beverley Creek bridge as possible.  I think the new route alignment in this section is actually better than the old one, but we'll have to wait for winter to find out for sure.

October 18, 2009 - Upper Beverley Creek

Thanks to Doris Leong, Hannes Fugmann and Svenja Herrmann with this effort.  We used the Rainbow Madeley Trail to access the mid point on the route up Beverley Creek.  First we checked out some alternative routes between the RM trail and the creek itself, but didn't find anything better than what I'd already flagged.  We cleared some brush on the final steep traverse and then had lunch by the creek in the rain.  Then we headed up into the upper part of the creek to flag this part of the route.  There's once section where there is a steep slope right down to the river that we didn't flag - will wait for winter to see what the best route is.  Just above this point, numerous 20m long trees have fallen into the creek, but are still hung up on the bank.  Up at the fork in the creek, I started working on some blowdowns and got the chainsaw really stuck in one.  I managed to get the saw and bar off (which the chain sill stuck in the log) but unfortunately we'd left the other chain behind a ways downstream.  We finished the flagging on the way out and headed straight for the car as we were thoroughly soaked by this point.  Despite the forecast for reasonable weather, it rained on us for most of the day.