Trailblazers Seeking New Blood
- kc dyer
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Plus, a history of Lions Bay Trailblazing: Part One
Sharp-eyed residents may have noticed a recent plea in the Lions Bay Village Update for new blood on the Trailblazer's Team.
Founder John Dudley put out a call for "enthusiastic people who don't need replacement parts" and who are interested in seeing our local trails remain in good condition to reach out to the group. He noted that many current members of the team have been on board for more than 25 years, and are now "approaching their best-before dates".
To give a sense of how the trails in and around the Village came to be, John has offered to share a history of their creation, the first part of which follows.
For those interested in joining, he can be reached at jhdudley1@gmail.com
John Dudley's History of the Lions Bay Trails, Part One
A few years ago Louis Peterson asked me to give a talk about the history of our trail system and show some pictures of us working on the trails.
I finally buckled under the pressure, spent days going through 19 years of photographs and attempted to put together my first PowerPoint presentation.
Much to my horror I found that Louis advertised my talk as “The Mountain Forest, Trails, Flora and Fauna”, so before I started to talk I thought I had better say that as far as the flora goes, in the spring there are a lot of flowers along the face of the gravel pit that were hydro seeded by MOT (the then provincial Ministry of Transportation) both indigenous and non-indigenous and in the forest there are the most incredible variety of mosses, ferns, salal and mahonia.
As far as the fauna goes, during all the years of working with groups and on my own I have seen a lot of squirrels, dug out a few newts by mistake and once in the middle of winter heard a pack of coyotes howling on the mountain below.
People always want to hear about encounters with bears and cougars, but although they probably watch us, we have never seen them. Having said, that Ken More was surprised by a bear in recent times that was looking down at him as he was sawing through a fallen tree. Ken tried to be friendly and said “Hello Bear,” which made the bear somewhat aggressive but it quickly lost interest and wandered off into the forest.
Louis also asked me to show lots of pictures of people working on the trails, but I have hardly any, since I was also working and didn't have any time for that sort of nonsense. So I have just a few pictures of people either bending down or having their lunch breaks.
In February 1998, Rose and I returned to the village after living in West Van for seven years. For a year we concentrated on landscaping our garden and then on June 20, 1999 at 3 a.m. I woke up with the idea of building a trail to link up with the Trans Canada Trail at Horseshoe Bay. I think this must have been inspired by all the hype about the Trans Canada Trail and having it opened by the year 2000.
A few days later on Canada Day, I mentioned my thoughts to Rudy and Trudi Luethy and they said if ever I got started they would like to help.
On December 5, 1999 I started clearing debris on the old Unnecessary Trail and cajoled Herb Johnston into joining me for a couple of days starting on December 30. On January 15, 2000, with Herb and my wife Rose back teaching, I was joined by Rudy and Trudi Luethy and production got into full gear.
It took us a total of 34 days from where they joined me to the top of the bluff which you can see clearly from the Harvey Creek Bridge. This included several days of just doing upgrading in areas that we had passed through very quickly. Work went on until June 20, which was two days before the opening to the residents of Lions Bay on June 23, 2000.
As the trail proceeded towards what used to be called Vronski’s Bluff, we thought it should be more than just a way to get to the bluff and that areas should be cleared up so that it became more like a park. One of the reasons for this was that we were amazed at the different types of vegetation and terrain that existed in such a small area.. We realized that people would probably be happy to just walk to a particular area and enjoy it, rather than having a need to push on to the end every time.
On opening day, I remember standing on Vronski's Bluff, looking up and saying we should carry on up the mountain, returning a different route and Rudy saying “You've got to be kidding.”
(Read John's original piece on Nature Lions Bay. Watch for part two, coming in December!)
The Watershed values your thoughts. Leave your comment below,
or email us at editor@lionsbaywatershed.ca
Like what you're reading?
Please consider supporting local independent journalism
by subscribing to The Watershed HERE.
