On Aug. 1, Ride Burns made an official announcement on their Facebook page about the exciting news of the reopening of the cross country trails.
The announcement stated that all the trails below the power lines are open including the campground.
Ride Burns President, Patti Dube said, “We’ve only been able to open up our cross country trails. We are open because we’ve been going in and making it so that they’re safe for people to cross those parts.”
She said, the trails are fine. There’s not much damage from the fires for the majority of it, since fire guards were built around the trails. She also said, the campground is now opened.
She doesn’t think the fire is close to the trails but believes B.C. Wildfire Services has concerns about that the fire reaching the communication tower on Boar Mountain.
Dube said, “We had to do one small minor repair, because they built a road across a couple little trails. We fixed that up last week and so it’s all get checked out, everything’s fine on the lower areas.”
She also said, the team is keeping track of all the repairs, including their machine operator and the number of hours they are working to get the trails up and running. Dube is hoping to receive remuneration from the government for getting the trails back in shape. At this moment, there is not an exact figure of the cost to repair the trails.
Dube is not sure whether it will be possible to host the Big Pig event, it had been announced for the month of September.
She said, “We don’t know and we’re hoping that we’d be able to open this week, but B.C. Wildfire Service extended it [access to the road] for another few weeks. We’re hopeful that we’ll be open in the next few weeks.”
As of this moment, all trails above the power lines remain closed and trail crews are working hard to gain access and fix everything where the fire guard did damage.
Just before press time, President Dube received a confirmation text from BC Wildfire Service and Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. the road is now open and all trails are accessible.
