Location:
Fools Gold Trail, Squamish to Pitt Lake
Between Squamish and Coquitlam lies Pine Cone - Burke Provincial Park. Ascending Mamquam Pass and passing through the untouched wilderness of the Boise River valley is a roughly 50 km wild route called the Fools Gold Trail. It was cleared in the 1990's by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee to bring attention to the value of the area, and was the impetus for the creation of the park itself to protect the area.
There have been attempts to organise clearing of the trail before, and they seem to have been cancelled or turned into simply an attempt at the trail. Someday when this trail is clear and well marked it seems to have the potential to be an excellent trail for runners, as the terrain is rolling and mostly at lower elevations. Especially now that they are apparently working out a way overland around the private land in the park. Currently it is overgrown and difficult to even follow.
I propose that starting May 22nd and going until the next weekend we organise as many people as are interested to do some major trail work and clearing on this trail. People could join later and easily catch up on the trail we have cleared. There may be some residents of the Coquitlam/Maple Ridge area who would want to start clearing from that side and we could meet up. There is a lot of underbrush which would need to be removed, bridges that need to be constructed, and actual trail building which needs to be done. This is currently a flagged route - with not even enough flagging to keep people on track. If we could turn it into a natural trail with reasonable drainage it would help a lot to at least keep people on track. Also we might have to creatively use some rock to get through wet sections and to stamp out growth through some of the logging slashes ect...
To make this work we would need quite a few people but there are already many who have talked about this for years from other groups like Club Tread and Eco Spirit we can try to coordinate with. There are also many in the Burke Mountain area who may be able to start clearing from the other side. Also we would have to do some fundraising as we would need to get some bridge building supplies and trail tools, although who knows maybe we could find a materials sponsor.
There are some private land issues (the Secret Evil Compound) on the only land route from the Coquitlam side to right now the access to the eastern trailhead is by boat. I was going to go there today do a warmup to the Secret Evil Compound and then run through as fast as possible, and check out the eastern trailhead but my car apparently needs a new waterpump and I had to turn back.
The Squamish side of the trail is also apparently in better shape so would be a better place to start anyway, and if we made it all the way to the Widgeon Creek trail near Pitt Lake in one swoop so be it but at least we would have an easier time getting out if we would not complete the whole trail. If things went ideally and we had enough people to clear and mark the whole trail we could run back and enjoy the fruits of our labour. This is early in the year and the water levels will be quite high. I am going to research lightweight and economical bridge designs and that way the trail will be passable from early summer on. This may turn into quite a bit of work in some places but if the trail is passable through a long season it will help to keep it more used and thus more clear.
Some links providing more information are below, I will update this with more details as the plan forms. Please post back with comments if you are interested, the sooner the better so we can have a plan in place ahead of time. If we could get a good number of people we could really make a difference for this trail. This is rugged backcountry - you do not have to be a runner by any means to take part we won't be moving fast - but you must be able to take care of yourself in the wilderness this is a very isolated area despite its proximity.
http://www.darkglobe.net/team/training/fools_gold_route.html#Topographic...
http://www.clubtread.com/sforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=28493&SearchTerms=Fool's,Gold
http://www.wodc.org/files/tt1998/Chapter%201.htm
