Trail Mis-Management
A local hiker contacted us about some changes that have occurred in Mara Canyon recently. His comments are provided here:
"I have a very concerning issue that I want to get out to the kamloops hiking/outdoor community, and your website seemed like the best place to start.
Last year I hiked the cinnimon ridge hoodoo trail for the first time. Far up into the canyon, past the hoodoos, we found an amazing juniper tree that spanned the creek bed. At first glance it appeared to be dead, but it clearly wasn't once you looked at all of the greenery at the top of the tree on the left side of the creek. I have attached a picture that I took that day.
I found it very incredible how this tree was living here like this. I even put a rock beside it's root area to protect it from people walking on top of it (as the trail closely passed by)
Fast forward to March 2012, and I was hiking on the same trail with some family. I was excited to show them this really neat tree, and to my (honest) horror, some fool had cut right through it!!! This exposed the ugly truth that this tree was over 100 years old, potentially nearly 150 years. AAAAAAh! I am very very mad and saddened by this. There is no reason at all for this tree to have been removed. The trail went around it, and it was low enough to step over anyway. And besides, the trail lower down in the canyon presents many more challenging obstacles.
The rest of the pictures that I have attached to the email are the one that I took this year. They show the cut tree.
I noticed that there were other limbs trimmed on the trail. So I have two suspicions:
- some hiker thought they were doing us a favor by cleaning up the trail. If this is the case, I'm hoping that if you post a message about this on your site, then maybe they will realize that they need to be much much more careful.
- someone is planning on putting a downhill bike trail right down through the canyon. I don't really think this is the case, however it wouldn't surprise me as the trail probably would be really fun. However, obviously this trail is completely unsuitable for biking given the sensitive nature of the trail, and the fact that people are often hiking up it. I wanted to mention this, because if other hikers see bike tracks on the trail, then we'll need to act quickly to notify the downhill bike community that this trail is off limits.
Oh man, am I ever upset about this!! 🙁
On a more positive note, there is a second tree on this trail the spans the creek and is still living. Hopefully no one decides to kill that one too.
Also, if you do write a post about this. You might want to highlight the fact that this ecosystem is incredibly slow growing. Close to where this tree was murdered, there is another juniper nearly twice as large. I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 250 years old."