Happy Creek West: Root Removals
As some of you may have already noticed, Happy Creek West is undergoing some authorized volunteer root removals. This is in response to over a dozen written member requests to standardize Happy Creek West to the standard of Happy Creek East. Our hope is that these generous volunteer efforts will increase trail accessibility and traffic, while also creating an efficient connecting corridor to other trails in the west area of our network.
Guidelines have been provided to experienced HMBA volunteers, ensuring that this initiative will sustainably enhance our trails for years to come. We have requested that our volunteers:
Focus on complete root removals - we do not want any partial root removals!
If a root is too large to be completely removed, please mine for material to cover the root (instead of removing the root). Mining holes should not be visible when walking/riding the trail.
All planned volunteer root removal efforts on Happy Creek W should be completed by 'end of season' this year. Given HMBA’s overall strategy throughout the trail network is to keep roots, we do not want root removal occurring on an ongoing basis.
We acknowledge that ‘root removal’ is a divisive issue within the HMBA community. HMBA’s board of directors discussed the issue at length prior to making the executive decision to authorize volunteer root removal on Happy Creek West. If you would like more information about the planned root removals or wish to share feedback, please email executivedirector@bikehinton.com