The corbin trail is now closed for the year and maybe longer with complete disregard of the FSA. If this is allowed to happen here who's next.We as sledders seem to have no voice, even tho we spend tons of money in the area and keep people employed.I think our days are numbered boys.
Our days are numbered.
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Teth-Air
Active VIP Member
Why is it closed?
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Caper11
Active VIP Member
Is there a link that you can post????
FernieHawk
Active VIP Member
Notice to FSA Members
Closure of public recreation trail without notification or stakeholder consultation
Fernie, BC February 26, 2019
Snowmobilers riding the Corbin area were surprised to encounter heavy equipment plowing snow off the groomed winter trail as they traveled back to their vehicles last Thursday afternoon. The 15km long backcountry recreation facility, located on public crown land, is managed and maintained by the Fernie Snowmobile Association (FSA) during the winter months on behalf of Recreation Sites and Trails BC.
“No consultation with local stakeholders or notices of the work being done were provided to the Fernie Snowmobile Association” explains FSA President Dave Hozjan. “It came down to asking the equipment operators on site who they worked for before we could reach out to inquire as to the nature of these activities and disruption of the public trail”.
Canfor has since advised they are completing road building in the area in advance of timber harvesting scheduled this spring. For the FSA, this means an unexpected loss of the area for the remainder of the season. “The public parking lot, kiosk and snowcat groomer storage facility are now essentially landlocked by a 4km section of plowed road” explains Hozjan. “It is illegal to for people to snowmobile down a plowed forest service road. The tracked groomer, which creates the maintained trail surface, certainly cannot drive that distance down the dirt road to reach the remaining section of groomed trail without causing damage to our equipment. There is just no room let alone the environmental approval in place for us to create a new bypass trail, a new parking lot or the pullouts required for the safe passage of recreational trail users on short notice”.
The Executive Director, Donegal Wilson, of the BC Snowmobile Federation (BCSF) said “it is disheartening to hear that a legally established trail managed under Partnership Agreement with the Province of BC has again been plowed out with zero communication. The volunteers that operate snowmobile clubs work hard to attract winter recreation tourism to their community for the benefit of the businesses where they operate. Though the club is a not-for-profit organization that does not mean that setbacks like this do not have a financial impact. Like any business, the club develops budgets, staff plans and makes equipment investments based on projected income. In this case, the loss of revenue has resulted in staff layoffs and added additional expense to the club to create communication plans, redirect traffic and ensure other trails are prepared to handle any increased traffic. It takes years for a club to establish a legal trail and it is supposed to provide certainty that a trail will be considered in industrial planning. The continued disregard for our trails is damaging BC’s reputation of having world class snowmobiling.”
The not-for-profit Fernie Snowmobile Association manages over 160km of groomed trails, 5 staging area facilities, and three backcountry warming shelters in the region. Fernie has seen exponential growth and success in the snowmobile sector over the past three years with riders contributing well over 1 million dollars annually to the local economy. The remainder of the FSA’s managed trail network in other parts of the valley will remain open, including Fernie’s most popular groomed area, Coal Creek, which opened on Feb 16th after logging activities by private land owner Canwell were completed for the season.
Closure of public recreation trail without notification or stakeholder consultation
Fernie, BC February 26, 2019
Snowmobilers riding the Corbin area were surprised to encounter heavy equipment plowing snow off the groomed winter trail as they traveled back to their vehicles last Thursday afternoon. The 15km long backcountry recreation facility, located on public crown land, is managed and maintained by the Fernie Snowmobile Association (FSA) during the winter months on behalf of Recreation Sites and Trails BC.
“No consultation with local stakeholders or notices of the work being done were provided to the Fernie Snowmobile Association” explains FSA President Dave Hozjan. “It came down to asking the equipment operators on site who they worked for before we could reach out to inquire as to the nature of these activities and disruption of the public trail”.
Canfor has since advised they are completing road building in the area in advance of timber harvesting scheduled this spring. For the FSA, this means an unexpected loss of the area for the remainder of the season. “The public parking lot, kiosk and snowcat groomer storage facility are now essentially landlocked by a 4km section of plowed road” explains Hozjan. “It is illegal to for people to snowmobile down a plowed forest service road. The tracked groomer, which creates the maintained trail surface, certainly cannot drive that distance down the dirt road to reach the remaining section of groomed trail without causing damage to our equipment. There is just no room let alone the environmental approval in place for us to create a new bypass trail, a new parking lot or the pullouts required for the safe passage of recreational trail users on short notice”.
The Executive Director, Donegal Wilson, of the BC Snowmobile Federation (BCSF) said “it is disheartening to hear that a legally established trail managed under Partnership Agreement with the Province of BC has again been plowed out with zero communication. The volunteers that operate snowmobile clubs work hard to attract winter recreation tourism to their community for the benefit of the businesses where they operate. Though the club is a not-for-profit organization that does not mean that setbacks like this do not have a financial impact. Like any business, the club develops budgets, staff plans and makes equipment investments based on projected income. In this case, the loss of revenue has resulted in staff layoffs and added additional expense to the club to create communication plans, redirect traffic and ensure other trails are prepared to handle any increased traffic. It takes years for a club to establish a legal trail and it is supposed to provide certainty that a trail will be considered in industrial planning. The continued disregard for our trails is damaging BC’s reputation of having world class snowmobiling.”
The not-for-profit Fernie Snowmobile Association manages over 160km of groomed trails, 5 staging area facilities, and three backcountry warming shelters in the region. Fernie has seen exponential growth and success in the snowmobile sector over the past three years with riders contributing well over 1 million dollars annually to the local economy. The remainder of the FSA’s managed trail network in other parts of the valley will remain open, including Fernie’s most popular groomed area, Coal Creek, which opened on Feb 16th after logging activities by private land owner Canwell were completed for the season.
LUCKY 7
Active VIP Member
the FSA is a top notch group of people to say the least. There was a meeting last week in Fernie about the logging in the area. Lots of people attended the meeting but the bottom line is Canwell is doing everything in a legal matter as per private land use. I agree doing what they did in Corbin sucks. Lots of talk around Fernie about what is going on around here.
KatMan
Active VIP Member
stop access to back country and problem solved with quads and sleds being back there. i feel bad for those in the area.
they did the exact same with Quads and then reduced the sled trails in the Castle are, east side of the Rockies.
understand than the NDP will continue to do this across your province, and they will chip away in different locations so a unified resistance cant occur. death by a 1000 cuts.
Alberta got some good support from first nations groups(krazy i know) when it came to their rights being curtailed by any type of access closure. they are about the only group the NDP does not want to fug with. just some food for thought.
start the organisation and resistance now. check these guys out. they have been fighting for 4 years now. they should be able to help with strategies.
https://www.facebook.com/CoalitionofAlbertans/
they did the exact same with Quads and then reduced the sled trails in the Castle are, east side of the Rockies.
understand than the NDP will continue to do this across your province, and they will chip away in different locations so a unified resistance cant occur. death by a 1000 cuts.
Alberta got some good support from first nations groups(krazy i know) when it came to their rights being curtailed by any type of access closure. they are about the only group the NDP does not want to fug with. just some food for thought.
start the organisation and resistance now. check these guys out. they have been fighting for 4 years now. they should be able to help with strategies.
https://www.facebook.com/CoalitionofAlbertans/
Teth-Air
Active VIP Member
So I understand that in BC it is illegal to ride a sled on a plowed road. But does that stop road legal vehcles to drive that road to stage up higher?
Bnorth
Active VIP Member
In this case this has nothing to do with government, it is a publicly traded corporation preparing for logging.
So is it Canfor or Canwell that is performing the work it sounds a bit confused?
Bnorth
Active VIP Member
As long as you can find a spot to park that doesn't impede industrial operations you can drive up and stage higher.
FernieHawk
Active VIP Member
Canfor ripped up the trail at Corbin...Canwel is responsible for all the logging going on around Fernie, two totally different things and companies.
drew562
Active VIP Member
With a radio on weekdays
moyiesledhead
Active VIP Member
Jeez, you guys need to chill a bit! Logging will always take priority over snowmobiling on Forest Service Roads. It's not some huge conspiracy to lock us out of the back country. They're making more cutblocks for us to ride in for chit sake! Short stumps too! Our club deals with this on one or more roads every winter without whining about it. Get over yourselves.
- Thread starter
- #15
You may be correct... but why not contact FSA with there plan and let them know what is going on so they can tell all of us that PAY for a trail pass the what when why and how so a alternate trail plan could be in place. Don't tell me they didn't know about this months ago.
KatMan
Active VIP Member
Never hurst for for a private company to be in good favour with any government, especially if they hold the power to give you more areas to log.
catinthehat
Active VIP Member
I doubt that the decision to start now was made more than a week ago. They are just taking advantage of a lower than usual snowpack. In a normal year it would be cost prohibitive to move enough snow for road building this time of year. Normally we see them start this activity in April not February.
moyiesledhead
Active VIP Member
They usually do. Our Moyie club has a very good relationship with Canfor and they "usually" notify us, but sometimes things get forgotten. No big deal. We've all forgotten things in our lives.
Bnorth
Active VIP Member
Yes big forest companies have a lot on the go and a lot of stakeholders and snowmobilers are near the bottom of the list. Their work always takes precedence over our recreation and having worked for Canfor I can tell you they likely made the decision to open that road days before it happened not weeks. As said above taking advantage of a low snowpack and likely a contractor that finished up another project early and suddenly had some capacity. The economic impact of a single cutblock outweighs the economic impact of a snowmobile clubs entire season.
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