Archive for 'Trails'

If you were a child from my era (or if you are anyone else that has the Teletoon Network), then you would remember the Superfriends. It was a cartoon where a crew of superheroes worked together at the Hall of Justice hanging around the water cooler (always in costume) until some super-villain decided to take over the world. The show was essentially always the same teaching viewers that good trumps evil, being strong can be helpful, teamwork is nice and grownups wearing tights and a mask are something to be celebrated not imprisoned.

The team had some mainstays like Aquaman, Superman, Batman and Robin and Wonder Woman, as well as some lesser known characters Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Rima the Jungle Girl, Apache Chief and a bevy of others.

Why you ask, is this important at a time like this when all we really want is to ride bikes and take chairlifts back up so we can ride the aforementioned bikes back down again?

Today was the first day with the full trail crew on hand and when that keen bunch showed up with new boots, clean, blister free hands and new shovels it made me think of the Superfriends. There was Pete-the-giant, Machine Wizard, Ginger-Ninja, Kung Fu Mike, Mad Dog, The Savage, Joslander, Patzilla, Groundskeeper Willie and a cast of supporting characters each with their own unique skill set and inhuman strength. The evil taking over Parkopolous was winter and the team would have to work together to save the mountain biking population from eternal vernal enslavement.

Minus the tights and masks the WMBP Trail Crew are indeed heroes, some of them can fly, some can lift ridiculously large rocks and some appear on occasion to change into something else at night under a full moon. Mostly though they are the saviors of our universe, putting in countless hours digging, raking, packing and repacking so we can all ride that endless conveyor of lift serviced gravity trails. As they go into battle for the season I tip my helmet to them and wish them godspeed…well actually I just wish them speed because we have 11 days to get as much of that Park open as we possibly can so you can come get some!

The list of trails will solidify as the days go by but the plan at this point is to have:

• A-Line
• B-Line
• Crank it Up
• HOD
• Ho Chi Min
• Monkey Hands
• Hornet
• World Cup Single Track
• Samurai Pizza Cat
• Karate Monkey
• Joyride Jumps / Drops

What do these unrelated items have in common? (Read below to find out!)

We are two weeks out from opening the Whistler Mountain Bike Park and this place is like a beehive of activity with more buzz happening each day we tick closer to the season kick off. Today for example, there are shop guys building the GBB bike shop and rental guys building bikes by the dozen. The lift mechanics are tuning up the Fitz and putting on the bike carriers that presumably they dug out of the snow somewhere. The building maintenance crew are putting the load and unload ramps on trucks and installing them as well as the split rail fencing we all know and love at the bottom. The first guides in the door are unpacking all of the uniforms and prizing for Phat Wednesday races. The bike patrol will be hanging from ropes in the Airdome shortly making sure their evac skills are as sharply tuned as their first aid.

Out on the trails the trail crew boys are dealing with winter’s bounty knocking down snow drifts and mixing in mud to make the melt transpire faster. The way we get your trails open is a multi step process. Step one is push anything we can with a snow-cat as it can do the heavy work to clear off ski run crossings and sections of trail wide enough to sneak down. Step two involves mini-excavators digging out the bulk of the snow on the machine built trails. Step three has the hand crew follow the machines a day or two later cleaning up all the residual snow and ice and opening up culverts for maximum runoff flow. The fourth step is the return of the machines to rebuild jump lips and berm radii. Five is the hand crew again, this time with rakes picking rocks and removing gravel. Finally step six is patrol marking jumps, adding signs and one final work run to make sure things are riding properly.

As you can see it takes a town to make this Bike Park ready for your enjoyment. At the moment we are in step two on A-Line with Crank it Up and B-Line on deck. Our plan is to get these three arteries flowing while Ma Nature works on the singletrack. Next week we tackle those capillaries hopeful that spring has done her part and we just need to scoop a few more blades to get them going. The current prediction is that we will have 8 to 10 trails ready to ride by opening day likely with a few more added last minute (my modus is to under-promise and over-deliver).

So what do a machete a mushroom and a mummified mouse have in common? Nothing, other than being the three items I found occupying my work boots when I went to put them on this morning at the tool shed. The way I see it, some time last fall the greedy mouse didn’t want to share his win fall mushroom with his homies so he tried to sneak it into the boot but it must have nudged the machete on the way down and knocked it off its nail either clobbering the mouse or trapping him inside the boot. At least that’s the theory I came up with while shovelling snow all afternoon. Funny how the mind wanders during manual labour. See you in a few weeks. BF