new $120K trail for squamish

When it comes to spending that budget, I hope that SORCA will remember the original, and long time builders that put in countless hours of their time for the benefit of everyone. They didn't do it for monetery gain, and yet now, someone else will be paid to do the same thing. Just sayin…. I don't live there and haven't ridden there for years, so maybe they are looking after those people without my input. Then my appologies for the inference and bravo to you. I hear the riding is great.

Why would visitors continue to ride an area if the trail system sucked, unless it was strictly for novelty reasons.

I had no idea that most Squamish trails are on private land. Resource/heavy industry owned land?

Why would visitors continue to ride an area if the trail system sucked, unless it was strictly for novelty reasons.

I had no idea that most Squamish trails are on private land. Resource/heavy industry owned land?

Lots of private potentially developed for houses land. Tons of forestry zoned land. The landowners have been super good about letting trails be for the most part. A good chunk of the trail system was built on the understanding that they might be clearcuts or houses one day

Hey zed and synchro. Ken's comment was in the Chief article comment link. He didn't delete it. My response is also in there.

One observation I probably didn't make clear is that the bulk of the funding of the type SORCA is seeking isn't from tourism buckets eg Destination BC or Tourism Squamish. Its from local government. Yes local gov cares about visitors but they care quite a bit more contribution to local amenities and that's where Ken had the information gap.

The only two places in Noram where mountainbiking visitation is high enough to potentially maybe affect funding decisions ins Whistler and Moab. And even then in the case of Whistler tourism orgs contributions back to trails is relatively small.

My point is just that its nice to have visitors to a trail system. Visitor economic impacts are a good way to sell the trailsystem as a good thing to potential funding sources. But the strong preexisting local community is a necessary precondition to the good local trail network in every case I looked at. So its an overstatement to say, and I paraphrase what ken said, that the visitors prompted Squamish trail expansion and the networks awesomeness

hey lee, yeah i realized after that ken's post/quote was from the article but didn't go back to change my post. i agree that ken may be overstating things, but i'm curious as to how much influence falls on either side of that argument. is it an 80/20 builders/visitors thing or more like an even split? i don't think there's a way to figure it out, but the two are definitely related.

at the end of the day this is great news for squamish and the riding community at large.

hey lee, yeah i realized after that ken's post/quote was from the article but didn't go back to change my post. i agree that ken may be overstating things, but i'm curious as to how much influence falls on either side of that argument. is it an 80/20 builders/visitors thing or more like an even split? i don't think there's a way to figure it out, but the two are definitely related.

at the end of the day this is great news for squamish and the riding community at large.

Yah agreed its an awesome thing for Squamish to undertake

Having had personal knowledge and experience of applying for funding from the same agencies its much more an 80/20 thing than a 50/50 split. In the EIS article from Pinkbike to which Ken linked there's lots of qualification about the worth of visitors and their economic impact.

Can someone briefly sum up why this kind of thing doesn't happen in Vancouver? I thought the economic benefits of mountain biking were well understood.

So is it about making sense of the patchwork of land managers? Inability to decide what to build and where? Or what else? Is there a short answer?

Can someone briefly sum up why this kind of thing doesn't happen in Vancouver? I thought the economic benefits of mountain biking were well understood.

So is it about making sense of the patchwork of land managers? Inability to decide what to build and where? Or what else? Is there a short answer?

Relative to the size of the Vancouver economy mountainbiking is miniscule, tiny, beyond small.

That does make sense. It's too bad. I dream of a time when each mountain will have a top-to-bottom climbing trail and matching Half Nelson-type descent and linking backcountry loops connecting the three mountains. Maybe a couple of gondolas or chairlifts to tie the different zones together Alps-style.
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That does make sense. It's too bad. I dream of a time when each mountain will have a top-to-bottom climbing trail and matching Half Nelson-type descent and linking backcountry loops connecting the three mountains. Maybe a couple of gondolas or chairlifts to tie the different zones together Alps-style.
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maybe we should have done a group buy on powerball tickets.

Can someone briefly sum up why this kind of thing doesn't happen in Vancouver? I thought the economic benefits of mountain biking were well understood.

So is it about making sense of the patchwork of land managers? Inability to decide what to build and where? Or what else? Is there a short answer?

frankly, this is a long term evolution and trial and error for clubs, it's coming, there's a good base that's been built, just keep moving the ball forward a bit at a time

Can someone briefly sum up why this kind of thing doesn't happen in Vancouver? I thought the economic benefits of mountain biking were well understood.

So is it about making sense of the patchwork of land managers? Inability to decide what to build and where? Or what else? Is there a short answer?

Short answer is that the nsmba took in over $100,000 from government funding last year. From what I heard at the agm more is expected in 2016. I think squamish is just a few years ahead of North Van but I would think we are on the same path.

As stated the local economy in the GVRD area does not see the impact the sport does in Squamish , I have family there and there is no real trades or skilled labor jobs on a large scale .

I was up there yesterday for a visit and to get my suspension serviced at Fluid Function , so we hit up all the local shops and from the way they spoke if we did not pop in the days are pretty quiet this time of year .