Last year marked another pivotal year for the Cowichan Lake Trail Blazer Society as we continued with our mission to create and maintain trails for hikers and mountain bikers in the Cowichan Lake area. Let’s explore some of the progress we made.
Our little core group of board members and regular volunteers worked on our trails in Fairservice Fun and Christopher Rock, expanding both networks and improving them considerably. Over 70 posts with numerous wayfinding signs are now helping our users.
Both networks now include big kiosks with trail maps and more information. Especially Fairservice Fun has also been expanded in terms of number of cleared trails, bridges, technical features, improved drainage, and updated flow for riders and hikers alike.
A large part of the work in the Fairservice Fun network is a result of another successful project. Thanks to some BC government sponsorship, the efforts of our board members, and an assist from the Chamber of Commerce Lake Cowichan, we were able to hire a trail builder over the summer. Toby, a regular biker in the network and volunteer builder, stepped up his commitment and delivered some amazing results:
- Trails like Lower Cutblock, Upper Cutblock, Chainsaw, and others saw their first iteration of being truly enjoyable rides.
- Numerous other trail segments received significant improvements such as the widening and clearing out of Twa Dogs from top to bottom.
- Cleared out areas for our trails kiosks, and even one bridge.
His thanks go to the board members who joined him for these projects. However that was not all, Toby also joined our group rides in the summer as a guide and expert showcasing the right lines down Steam Donkey and other trails. This also resulted in further video coverage for our network from other riders such as Cowichan MTB and Jordan Chaplin.
In some private rides he also recorded a whole lot of source material and used his evenings to configure our CLTBS YouTube channel with over a dozen videos. Check out the little tutorial for Lower Steam Donkey for example:
Now we are ready to prepare for another successful trail building season in the upcoming months. The year 2025 is definitely going to see our trails expand again – how much however depends on you all. We need your support, your input, your connections, your sponsorship, and even just your usage of the trails and your word of mouth to recommend the trails.
A first step in helping us might be to show up at the upcoming open meeting on the 5th of February 2025 to learn more.
