Day 29- Squamish Trail Building

It was time to put something back into the trails for all the fun I've taken out of them over the years. So today we volunteered to go trail building in Squamish with SORCA or rather trail maintaining.

We had a big contingent from T2R- 11 of us, 3 guests and the rest were staff. It was a long day driving down to Squamish to meet the trail crew on the Mamaquam FSR by 10am, muffins and coffee for brfeakfast and lunch provided by Bean Around the World coffee shop.

We all piled into 4WD vehicles and drove for 20mins up the dirt roads, then grabbed an axe, a shovel and a hoe and a bunch of buckets and then hiked up a trail called Skookum and then up Upper Powersmart to the log roll bridge. About a 30 min uphill hike.

The bridge was pretty decayed and getting dangerous so our job was to build a new diversion around it. Barry from SORCA flagged the trail and we set about benchcutting it, digging down far enough to remove the organic top soil and get down to the mineral base or what they call BC Gold.

It was back breaking stuff but with about 20 odd people there we soon saw the whole trail section come together. Chain saws were working busily around us and axes and machetes were being wielded to cut through logs, branches and roots until a sustainable trail appeared.

In places the trail was built up and fortified with rocks that we gathered from around the area- loads of materials here to work with- then some BC gold was dug up from away from the trail and laid on top of the rocks to make a good solid sustainable trail- we hope!

By 3 everyone was flagging and those axes weren't being swung with so much enthusiasm anymore so it was beer o'clock! We collected up tools and headed back on down the trail with them over our shoulders- hi ho!

On the way back down the dirt roads we stopped at the Quest university and had a BBQ and some beers on their patio that overlooks the mountains- wow what a place to study!

The drive home was a sleepy one and those aching backs and shoulders will really tell on the hill tomorrow! But I have a good conscience for putting a little love back into those trails. Got to go ride them now!