A North Vancouver trail user is calling out Mount Seymour and BC Parks after resort contractors used heavy machinery to groom a rarely used trail, taking out or damaging a swath of trees in the process.
The northernmost snowshoe trail marked the E Trail, also known as the Cougar Trail, is within the resort’s boundaries, but it is usually roped off, said Mike Hanafin.
Hanafin was aghast when he crossed onto the trail recently and saw tracks from a snow groomer.
“I didn’t go very far and I saw at least half a dozen to a dozen trees that had been either decapitated or damaged on the sides. Parts of them were just lopped off by this Sno-Cat machine,” he said. “If there was a tree in the way, boom, they went right over. Where they were trying to squeeze between bigger trees, they just rammed it through there and damaged bigger trees. That, to me, is just inexcusable.”
Beyond his obvious concerns about the environmental damage, Hanafin questions the wisdom of grooming the E Trail at all, as it starts out quite tame but becomes highly challenging with steep sections and creek crossings. By grooming it, Hanafin worries it will woo in snowshoers who aren’t prepared for the backcountry conditions.
“It's not an area where people who aren't experienced and equipped should be venturing into,” he said.
Hanafin wrote about his concerns to Mt. Seymour Resorts management and to the Ministry Environment and Climate Change Strategy, which oversees BC Parks and grants Mt. Seymour Resorts its licence to operate in the provincial park. It’s not the first time this has happened, he noted, having taken the ministry to task for damaging up to 100 trees on the main Mount Seymour trail in 2020.
Rory Moorhead, outdoor education manager for Mt. Seymour Resorts, wrote back to Hanafin on March 16.
“Concerning the damaged trees you observed within the ski area boundaries, both the Mt. Seymour Main Trail and Cougar trails are not the standard we want to uphold when providing recreational services,” he wrote. “As a result, we will be continuing our remediation work cleaning up the damaged trees and providing maintenance to the trails in an appropriate and environmentally sensitive manner to accommodate winter access. Furthermore, we will refrain from grooming these trails until sufficient snowpack ensures there isn’t further damage in the future.”
Hanafin, however, did not receive a response from the province. The Ministry of Environment did release a statement to the North Shore News.
“BC Parks works closely with Mt. Seymour Resorts to confine the grooming to the designated route on the Seymour Main Trail, to avoid damage to vegetation,” the statement read. “Park rangers regularly patrol the route and are expected to report any deviation from the agreed-upon grooming program. Any damage observed, without sufficient rationale or justification, may result in enforcement action taken under the Park Act.”
Hanafin said the province takes far too much of a hands-off approach to the park.
“That’s just a standard boilerplate. The ministry just puts out a response and hopes it goes away. And that is typically how the ministry deals with just about everything, as far as I've seen,” he said. “So far, I haven’t seen any accountability.”
