The Squamish Access Society (SAS) is hoping that outreach will be enough to curb unsanctioned trails that have been popping up in Smoke Bluffs Park over the last three years.
"The problem, from our perspective, is that the trails are built without any thought or integration into the rest of the park," said Alex Ryan Tucker, chair of SAS, which advocates for climbing in Squamish.
"They often feed out onto trails or the base of climbs, so there's definitely potential for some sort of accident—not just with climbers, but a lot of residents there now like to walk their dogs or walk around. That's our concern."
Part of the problem is that the trails have ended up in short videos on social media, attracting more riders to them, Tucker said. Some of those riders have been professional mountain bikers.
"Some of the people building these trails and riding them might be locals [who] understand how this goes onto the Loop Trail .. and have a spotter at the bottom and don't bomb through the park, but as other people come and start riding this stuff, they don't have the context or foresight," he said.
Earlier this year SAS—that has many members who are also bikers, Tucker pointed out—reached out to the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association (SORCA) and toured them through the area with the unsanctioned trails. That organization then contacted its membership with a memo hoping to deter riders from using the unsanctioned trails or building new ones.
"It is not our park to manage, but we put [a] public education memo out to our members to encourage them to recreate amicably in that park," SORCA said in a statement to The Squamish Chief.
A representative for the organization forwarded the memo:
"Some of Squamish's earliest mountain bike trails exist in this park, and losing access to the area would be extremely disappointing to SORCA's membership and the broader [mountain bike] community," the memo reads. "SORCA continues advocating for mountain biking within the park, consistent with the current management plan. So far, these advocacy efforts have been productive. However, continued unsanctioned building and non-permitted filming may threaten future access to the area and compromise advocacy efforts and community relationships."
Governance
Smoke Bluffs Park is governed by the Smoke Bluffs Park Management Plan, which is overseen by the Smoke Bluffs Park Advisory Committee.
"Any new trail development within the park should be authorized by the Smoke Bluffs Park Advisory Committee and the District of Squamish prior to any route clearing or trail construction," the plan reads. "Unauthorized trail building and structure construction is not permitted within the park boundaries."
For its part, the District said the issue is not a new one.
"Unsanctioned trail building is not a new issue in the District and its development on municipal land is something that requires collaboration between user groups and the District to reign in," District of Squamish spokesperson Rachel Boguski said in an email. "The District is working with recreational user groups, such as SORCA, to target unsanctioned trail development in areas of concern and raise awareness amongst trail users. Smoke Bluffs Park is one of those areas."
As outlined in the plan, mountain biking and commuter biking are allowed in the park, but on sanctioned trails.
"That plan has written into it a section of the park appropriate for biking, but it feels like [unsanctioned trails are] encroaching into the climbing areas and is now starting to cause some conflict," Tucker said. "It's definitely challenging because SORCA has put out that message to their membership and I think there's a large portion of the community who are totally on board with what SORCA says and understand building unsanctioned trails is going to cause issues, but there are always people who want to do their own thing."
Increased park traffic
The area is only set to get busier with housing developments under construction and proposed, Tucker added.
"With the Redbridge development, for example, there will be a bunch more people, and that will become their local park. They want to walk around the park," Tucker said. "If Crumpit Woods goes ahead, we anticipate it becoming more of an issue."
Overall, though, he said he's optimistic outreach will help make a difference.
"I would say I'm optimistic it will get through to people," he said. "I want people to understand we're not just saying no to biking in Smoke Bluffs because we have a problem with it … We're totally supportive of, say, for example, the multi-use trail that connects Valleycliffe through there. That will become more important as more development happens and we need people to have routes to commutes and cycle to school and all that stuff. I kind of hoped that if it might not directly reach people building trails or they might not be on board right away … maybe there's a bit of social pressure to not celebrate these quick little hits that are built just for an Instagram clip."
