Volunteers with the Cowichan Lake Trail Blazers Society have had a few busy days repairing trail markers that have been ripped out of the ground.
Trail Blazers President Bob Day says there’s been a long history of dirt biking and ATV riding in Lake Cowichan and that these trails used to be part of an older system.
“We’ve used some old routes used by motorcycles, So the folks that still love that history are upset with us,” he says. “It’s not our job to patrol it and you know we’re not the police out there we’re just doing what we’re allowed to do. And what we’re not allowed to do is promote motorized use.”
According to Day, it’s a matter of the land use agreement with Moasic Forest Management, which only covers liability for human-powered activities. “We’re legit, the other folks are trespassing, but that’s none of our business, we have the agreement.”
The Trail Blazers have been working closely with Mosaic to secure over 1000 hectares of new trail lands and with that, they need 10,000,000 dollars of liability insurance.
Day adds it doesn’t matter who is ripping out the markers or why they are doing it, what really matters is the time and money that goes into repairing the trails.
“It’s really hard to take as volunteers when you see these things laying on the ground and we want to go out there grooming more trails and building more trails but we got to spend time going back and replanting these.”
He hopes that if the Trail Blazers repair the damage and move on, the vandalism will stop eventually
If you’d like to help out the Trail Blazers, you can sign up to be a member on their website.
