My first hike on the North Shore mountains was with a school group back when I was a teenager more than 50 years ago.
Since then I have travelled around the world to climb and hike in mountains.
Now retired after a 40-year career with Telus, I have more time to explore the many trails close to my home in North Vancouver. Unfortunately, the trails in local BC Parks have degraded terribly, which I’ve documented in photographs.
Most of the problems that I encountered are due to poor trail design and lack of maintenance. The “Main Trail” that heads to Mount Seymour was probably built in the late 1960s when the Mystery Peak chairlift was installed. Now it is a badly eroded trail with many loose rocks just waiting to twist your ankle. It seems to have been neglected for the past 20 years. BC Parks tried to improve one section about five years ago, but they only got about 200 metres of trail built to a dead end. In Cypress Provincial Park, an organization that I volunteer for has been working with BC Parks to improve the Howe Sound Crest Trail. However, only four kilometres of trail have been improved in the past 10 years, and that “new” section is already eroding in places.
Farther from Vancouver, the Stawamus Chief trails to the Second and Third peaks need a lot of work. Given the amount of erosion, repairing such trails might seem impossible, but it’s not; many sections of the Baden Powell Trail have sturdy bridges, boardwalks, and staircases to navigate steep terrain.
As part of the government’s response to COVID-19, BC Parks initiated a pilot project to restrict the number of hikers on popular trails. Although COVID was a catalyst, the larger issue seemed to be that trails to Joffre Lakes, Garibaldi Lake, Mount Seymour and the Howe Sound Crest Trail cannot withstand the onslaught of thousands of hikers on any given day. (Those hikers ended up going elsewhere, which placed a burden on local trails built and maintained by volunteers.) The day-pass reservation system – which cost the province almost a million dollars and was universally disliked by anyone who tried to use it – was pretty much an admission of failure that BC Parks has not adequately maintained the trails within its boundaries nor constructed new trails that could disperse hikers.
“We just don’t have the budget” is the first and most predictable excuse that BC Parks comes up with, but to a lot of volunteer hiking clubs, reallocating even a tiny portion of its $40-million annual budget could make a huge difference when it comes to trail construction and maintenance.
In 2020 dollars, the BC Parks budget has declined since the mid-1980s, while outdoor recreation (specifically day-hiking) has skyrocketed. Indeed, BC Parks funding hasn’t recovered from budget cuts and the privatization of services made during Social Credit’s restraint program in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s, the NDP government doubled the size of BC parkland as part of its commitment to the United Nations Brundtland Report. This expansion concentrated on managing ecosystems by protecting wildlife corridors and old-growth timber, but little consideration was given to recreational access and trails. One of these parks, the 38,000-hectare Pinecone Burke Provincial Park, is just northeast of Coquitlam. Yet 25 years after its creation, the park still does not have a comprehensive management plan, let alone a trail network.
Parks funding is an election issue that directly affects North Shore residents. Though COVID-19 rages on, B.C.’s public health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry still counsels British Columbians to responsibly take advantage of our open spaces to improve our mental and physical health. Both the Liberals and NDP have announced their intentions to increase parks funding. The NDP’s aggressive social media campaign promises to “create new campgrounds, trails, and protected areas while increasing funding to improve infrastructure and protect park ecosystems."
The Federation of Mountain Clubs, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC advocate increasing BC Parks funding by $60 million, which is only .1 per cent of the government’s annual $60 billion in expenses. More money is needed to maintain trails, campgrounds and picnic sites. More park rangers are needed to educate park users and enforce regulations. Whichever party comes to power after this election, hikers, climbers, and lovers of nature must hold the parties to their promises and insist on an action plan that will create new trails and upgrade existing ones.
Longtime North Shore outdoor enthusiast Jay MacArthur is a volunteer with the Federation of Mountain Clubs of BC.
