History of Lions Bay Trails (Continued)

John Dudley remembers the ups and downs of trail building

Photo by John Dudley.

Long-time resident John Dudley has been building and maintaining the local trail system around the Village for decades, and he's looking for some help.

In a recent outreach to local residents on social media, Dudley notes that "a number of our team have been with the group for over 25 years and are now approaching their best-before date." He says he's hoping to welcome some enthusiastic volunteers who don't yet need "replacement parts."

To that end, we have encouraged him to share his memories of trailbuilding around the Village over the years. You can read Part One HERE, in which Dudley tells of cajoling his team into action, way back in 1999...

History of the Lions Bay Trails, Part Two

Six and a half years later the loop was completed with the help of many people, some of whom were in between jobs, recently retired or could only join us on weekends.

We originally named the trail the Totally Unnecessary Trail, but after the tragic death of Erin Moore on December 22 2014, changed the name in her honour, and shortly after created Erin's Enchanted Forest. Since then there has been an annual hike to Erin's Enchanted Forest every December.

When we had almost completed the trail, Trudi Luethy kept bugging me about an old spur off the Lions Trail where there was once a beautiful view that she used to go to escape from the world. We went to have a look at it and decided it should become a loop trail where people could get a quick workout. When it was finished I thought it would be a nice hour's stroll until some of the extreme people in the village started running it in 23 minutes.

We had almost completed Trudi's Trail, and work on widening the Squamish Highway was in full swing when I was asked if it would be possible to build a trail linking up Brunswick Beach to the village to celebrate its centenary as a settlement. I was invited to attend the dreaded HAG (Highway Advisory Group) meetings, which seemed to drag on for years.

One day after the Remembrance Day Ceremony at the hall, told Rudy Luethy I was off to find the Northwest Passage and we went scrambling through the forest in search of a route.

Many of you helped with this trail and both the MOT and Kiewit Construction were very supportive, even lending us an operator with a big backhoe to dig the section across the gravel pit.

During this period there was a lot of angst amongst the people who lived on Sunset and Mountain because of the parking situation in the summer and on weekends with people going up the Lions. To help alleviate the situation, Pat Harrison — who volunteered with Trails BC — got a team of people together and roughed in a trail from the school parking lot to the beginning of the Lions Trail.

After we had completed the Centennial Trail, our team worked on improving the trails that Pat had roughed in and named them the Upper and Lower Harrison in his honour.

Just so that we wouldn't get too bored we also built a connecting trail from Sunset down to Mountain Drive. (More on that trail when the story continues.)

Editor's note: The photos, above and below, show the team's efforts to put a bridge across Lonetree Creek on September 10, 2007.

Dudley says: "Five of us carried an Alaska mill, chain saw and ropes up the Totally Unnecessary Trail (now the Erin Moore Trail) and completed the job in a day. We put a handrail across a few days later. The bridge was washed downstream after heavy rains in December 2014 and put back in position in the summer of 2015."

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