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Making-Tracks

Gravel service road unsafe for hikers and bikers

Black Mountain trail a no-go

The series on introductory trails is on hiatus this week. Instead, this special column focuses on a Central Okanagan trail not recommended for hikers and cyclists.

Open letter to Central Okanagan Regional District directors and Kelowna city councillors:

I'm writing with my concerns about the trails in Black Mountain sntsk‘il’nt?n Regional Park, specifically the use of coarse gravel on hills at both the Swainson Road and Joe Rich Road trailheads.

I include city councillors in this open letter because trail signs at Black Mountain sntsk‘il’nt?n Regional Park include the City of Kelowna logo and the regional district logo, and park users may suspect the cityto be involved in what I believe are unsafe trail conditions.

I would encourage regional board directors, as well as city councillors, to drive to Swainson Road and do a short walk up what is described on the park map as a “service road,” as far as the Coyote Trail. In fact, it is both a service road and a trail access.

You will immediately notice the Swainson Road parking lot and initial roadway up to the park gate is composed of hard-packed fine gravel but then the roadway switches to a thick layer of coarse gravel which moves underfoot as you climb a long hill.

During an e-bike outing on May 31, you could see vehicle tire tracks in the loose gravel. At the Coyote trailhead, there were narrow bicycle tire tread marks as the gravel shifted around. Yet fine gravel was used on Coyote and other uphill trails, some of them built by Central Okanagan students as a school project. Feedback on the service road gravel from trail users ranges from "uncomfortable" to "horrible."

The same is true at the Joe Rich Road trailhead—fine gravel in the parking lot and the first section of flat trail but coarse gravel up a long steep hill.

First, a little history. On April 21, a group of us e-biked from Joe Rich Road to Swainson Road, coincidentally, the same day as an official grasslands tour. When I reached the Swainson trailhead, I asked a group of tour participants what was with the coarse gravel? You could see uncomfortable looks on several faces and one woman responded that my concerns would be passed on to the regional parks department.

The loose coarse gravel is already migrating to the sides of the service road and hikers have started wearing new paths in the dirt on either side so they don't have to walk on the gravel. Of course, loose gravel scatters to the sides more quickly on steep grades, especially when service vehicles are climbing and descending.

I emailed the department explaining the regional coordinating committee for the Okanagan Rail Trail experimented with three different trail materials in a one-kilometre section in Lake Country. The winning combination was a fine gravel mix, compacted seven times which produced an almost asphalt-hard surface for 28 kilometres of trail between Lake Country and Coldstream. It has stood up to hundreds of thousands of visitors hiking and biking since it officially opened on Sept. 27, 2018.

I also contacted the Shuswap Trail Alliance and a spokesperson said: "For what we refer to as a Type 2 aggregate surface trail, it requires a compacted top tread surface of crusher fines, ideally with extra high fines content, which when wet and compacted, forms up to create a very firm surface. The fine (gravel) binds around the larger aggregate. (Like you see on the Okanagan Rail Trail and currently being applied to the northern (50-kilometre) Shuswap North Okanagan Rail Trail.)

“There can be subsurface layers using larger aggregate to build up the height of the trail, but the surface still needs the compacted crusher fines to set up firm enough for walking or riding on."

I expressed my concern to the regional parks department by email on April 21 and received the following reply on May 3

"Before the formal opening can occur, we are still working on the last bits of work that our contractor needs to complete, some of which is the placement of our standard crusher chip on the access trails from the Joe Rich Road side and some on the Swainson Road side. This gravel was not placed last fall as equipment and trucks were still navigating those surfaces. Now that the bulk of trail work is nearing completion, these are the final touches to be completed."

My May 6 email reply was: “I wasn't sure from your response if an additional layer was contemplated. If not, you might consider asking your contractor to spread a thin layer of crusher fines heading uphill from the Swainson Road trailhead gate as an experiment. A thin layer spread evenly by a dump truck should extend quite a distance uphill and should not be that expensive. That empty dump truck coming back down the Swainson Road trailhead hill, slowly, will provide at least an initial compaction. As the expert builders noted, the larger crusher chips move around like walking on marbles."

There was no response from regional parks.

If it's a matter of funding for a thin layer of crushed fine gravel, I would urge regional board directors to provide regional parks with a few hundred dollars as quickly as possible for one dump truck load to determine if that pilot project would make a crucial difference.

As the Shuswap Trail Alliance spokesperson said: "Topping with crushered fine (gravel), wetting and packing might work."

Applying a thin layer of crusher fines would certainly start the process and a little rain would help.

I am currently writing a series on introductory trails for my Castanet outdoor recreation column but in good conscience, I can't recommend what I believe to be an unsafe service road or trail which is the only way to access the upper trails at Black Mountain sntsk‘il’nt?n Regional Park from Swainson Road.

Regional board directors should also consider the legal liability if someone is injured after falling on an insecure gravel surface.

J.P. Squire

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



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About the Author

J.P. Squire arrived in the Okanagan Valley from flatland Chatham, Ont. in the middle of the night in the spring of 1980. Waking up in the Highway 97 motel, he looked across the then-four-lane roadway at Mount Baldy and commented: "Oh my God, there's mountains." Driving into downtown Kelowna, he exclaimed: "Oh my God, there's a lake."

The rest is history. After less than a month in Kelowna, he concluded: "I'm going to live here for a long time." And he did.

Within weeks and months, he was hiking local hillsides, playing rec hockey at Memorial Arena and downhill skiing at Big White Ski Resort. After purchasing a hobby farm in the Glenmore Valley in 1986, he bought the first of many Tennessee Walking Horses. After meeting Constant Companion Carmen in 1999, he bought two touring kayaks and they began exploring Interior lakes and B.C.'s coast.

The outdoor recreation column began with downhill ski coverage every winter as the Ski Sheriff but soon progressed to a year-round column as the Hiking, Biking, Kayaking and Horseback Riding Sheriff.

His extensive list of contacts in Okanagan outdoor recreation clubs, organizations and groups means a constant flow of emails about upcoming events and activities which will be posted on Castanet every Sunday.

You can email the Sheriff at: [email protected].



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The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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