The North Shore trails are used by an extensive community and great builders keep everyone in mind when designing and building on trails in our network. Sometimes this may mean a slight change to an existing trail tread or feature.
Recently our dedicated builder Tom Ferenc, with the help of Metro Vancouver and volunteers from Rocky Mountain, worked on a project for the rock feature on Forever After. The builder’s goal of this project was to make this feature accessible to a larger demographic of trail users while maintaining a degree of technical challenge. Tom worked incredibly hard to consider all trail users, while also being challenged with the terrain conditions in the area.
Before & after of rock feature project
A rider is only limited by their imagination, and any trail can be made more challenging by being creative in your line selection.
The new feature provides many options including:
- Easy walking for hikers beside the feature (orange line), or over the feature
- Advanced rider black line – air the gap onto the rock armouring
- Intermediate rider blue line – an easy rollable feature
- Intermediate/advanced rider black line – the high line was kept intact
Tom was able to complete the project to about 85%, and last rode it on Sunday, December 17th around 4pm. When he returned on Monday afternoon to complete the work, he found that someone had ripped out all that had been already finished.
It is truly heartbreaking that someone would actively destroy trail work done by a dedicated volunteer builder. The NSMBA will be working with Metro Vancouver to reinstall this feature and hope that by sharing the intent and purpose of this work it won’t be ripped out again.
Trails for All. Trails Forever.
Deanne Cote
Executive Director