People might not think a snowmobile could damage a ski trail but it does.
Especially on the steep Tabor Mountain trail where traversing up the mountain might not be too treacherous but navigating back down the mountain over ridged snow-machine tracks certainly is not safe for skiers.
"When we went up there the other day we were expecting a nice layer of about 12 inches of snow to ski in but that wasn't the case," Norm Clark, president of the Hickory Wing Ski Touring Club, and member of the umbrella organization the Tabor Mountain Recreation Society, said.
Sometime during the last few days snowmobilers smashed the lock to release the chain that held the gate shut to gain access to the pristine ski and snowshoe trails groomed and maintained by the Tabor Mountain Recreation Society and the Hickory Wing Ski Touring Club, which works under the authority of Recreation Sites and Trails B.C.
"As soon as it's packed down it gets really slick for us," Diane Clark, a member of the society and club who is also Norm's wife, said. "And that's not safe for us."
The skiers and snowshoers only have about 30 km of trails on Tabor Mountain, while the rest of the 200+ kilometres of trails are there for the snow machine crowd.
Why ruin the skiing trails?
"Because they are really nicely groomed, wide open trails," Diane said. "When we go up to groom the trails we take chain saws with us."
Norm said sometimes there's as many as six chain saws present during one of their many work parties where some of the 40 or so members of Hickory Wing spend hundreds of hours grooming the trails for hiking, skiing and snowshoeing.
Only to be ruined when snowmobilers decide to ride the trails, he added.
For many years the trails on the east side of the tower road have been designated a "non-motorized winter use area" and there are signs posted in several places to reflect this, Norm explained.
The main trailhead is located along Highway 16, five kilometres east of Tabor Mountain Resort in a parking area on the south side of the highway where there is an old BC Rail Boxcar, Norm added. There is also access to the trails from Groveburn Road which runs along the east side of Tabor Lake. This road is maintained only to the Groveburn gravel pit during the winter months. In the summer the road offers access to the communication towers at the top of the mountain. In the winter months the Hickory Wing group leads twice-weekly ski outings, usually Sundays and Wednesdays.
"Tabor Mountain is our home away from home," Norm said. "We spend a lot of time there because we enjoy it. Is it too much to ask that people respect our little area on the mountain so that we can ski and snowshoe safely?"
