South Chilcotin Mountain Park...comments required

edit: Flip beat me to it!

BC Parks has summarized the results of their request for public input regarding the South Chilcotin Draft Management Plan.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/summary-of-public-input-to-lillooet-area-draftmp.pdf

It's just a summary, with no conclusions, but there's no doubt they understand they're kicking a hornet's nest from the somewhat defensive tone. I think most of the biking community's points have been made, and recognized.

the non-mountain biking community likely accounted for less than 20 out of the 394 responses.

Now we'll see if the re-write looks like.

Bottom line: nothing is changing, this year at least.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to write in!

lots of back pedaling and revisionist history of draft plan,

Yeah, my favorite part:

Most of these commenters were somehow under the impression that mountain biking was being severely restricted or banned from the parks. As this was not part of any proposed direction in the draft management plan, it is a question of where this
belief originated.

Gee, maybe it was because of parts where they considered restricting bikes to certain trails, at certain time of day, on certain days of the week, at certain times of the year. Wonder how we got that impression?

for what it's worth, they sat down with WORCA and some other bike people last week and were pretty conciliatory, from what I've heard.

Gee, maybe it was because of parts where they considered restricting bikes to certain trails, at certain time of day, on certain days of the week. Wonder how we got that impression?

LOL, no kidding, the guy doesn't even remember what he actually wrote in the draft plan, gives me lots of confidence.

with mountain biking being the new golf, maybe there is some validity to some of the proposed limitations such as how many float plane drops per day for example. with all the wealthy riders looking to shred the gnar down those remote wilderness trails for the day from Warner the din from the planes gets annoying to regular backcountry riders like myself. ah, just another false division perhaps….

with mountain biking being the new golf, maybe there is some validity to some of the proposed limitations such as how many float plane drops per day for example. with all the wealthy riders looking to shred the gnar down those remote wilderness trails for the day from Warner the din from the planes gets annoying to regular backcountry riders like myself. ah, just another false division perhaps….

I typically do not comment on this sort of thing. I work for tyax adventures, just to be clear.

on average we only fly into Warner twice a day. we will fly more if the winds let us, but often it is not possible. once the winds start to out flow at around 9am, we can not take off from the lake. so there are not a lot of flights heading up valley during a normal day. its nice and quiet up there for the most part.

spruce is another story. maybe there should be limits to the number of flights into the park. we raised the price of our flights last year as an incentive to fly fewer day trips and keep revenues the same. we are keenly aware of the disruption that the airplane makes with in the park. at the same time the tyax owned beaver has been flying into spruce lake since the 80's. also there is an old runway in bigcreek park just west of the graveyard junction. so its not like air traffic in this area is a new thing.

there is a noticeable increase in users. Who gets to choose which users get limits imposed on them? the commercial operator in question invested a lot of time and money to have the draft management plan re evaluated. with out that input I highly doubt the current about face in regards to mountain bike traffic in the area would have happened. just something to think about.

most of that is my opinion and by no means represents Tyax Adventures.

there is a noticeable increase in users.

That is probably true for the popular areas; where we've been spending our time I've seen 2 other groups in 3 years. 1 group was a commercial guided hunting trip, and the other was 2 people back packing. Nobody on bikes.

Glad to see BC Parks is actually taking the public feedback they received on the draft plan. Looks like the next step is they are writing the final version for South Chilcotin [HTML_REMOVED] Yalakom. A little surprised they don't write up a revised draft as there should be substantial changes to the draft based on all the feedback they received.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/lillooet_mp.html

I typically do not comment on this sort of thing. I work for tyax adventures, just to be clear.

on average we only fly into Warner twice a day. we will fly more if the winds let us, but often it is not possible. once the winds start to out flow at around 9am, we can not take off from the lake. so there are not a lot of flights heading up valley during a normal day. its nice and quiet up there for the most part.

spruce is another story. maybe there should be limits to the number of flights into the park. we raised the price of our flights last year as an incentive to fly fewer day trips and keep revenues the same. we are keenly aware of the disruption that the airplane makes with in the park. at the same time the tyax owned beaver has been flying into spruce lake since the 80's. also there is an old runway in bigcreek park just west of the graveyard junction. so its not like air traffic in this area is a new thing.

there is a noticeable increase in users. Who gets to choose which users get limits imposed on them? the commercial operator in question invested a lot of time and money to have the draft management plan re evaluated. with out that input I highly doubt the current about face in regards to mountain bike traffic in the area would have happened. just something to think about.

most of that is my opinion and by no means represents Tyax Adventures.

good info and understood. unrelated to Tyax operations, i've had a helicopter (i'm guessing from Whistler or Vancouver) land nearby to drop off hikers while riding in the backcountry. in aggregate, this is the kind of mechanized travel that can grate on me a bit. however, i'm a purist and have to check myself at times: any and all time spent there is incredible, so much so that when it's 'broken' by the landing of aircraft it seems most notable. also, i should be stoked that there isn't dirt bikes and quads and the rest in the park so perhaps hollow complaints on my part. it's just such a remarkable area, and relatively near by that one begins to covet the sanctity of the place.

i've had a helicopter (i'm guessing from Whistler or Vancouver) land nearby to drop off hikers while riding in the backcountry.

very interesting. here is a list of the licensed operators with in the park.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/disclaimer/south_chilcotin_d.html

as far as I know there is no licensed summer helicopter transport. TLH flys into the park in the winter. they use Mustang Heli. it could have been some of their staff cleaning up landing zones. if not it likely was not legal. but I have been wrong before.

Bumping this thread as it is topical to the discussion about the recent Coastal Crew video about riding in the South Chilcotin park.

Discussion about the draft plan is here:
http://bb.nsmb.com/showthread.php?t=159056

Old thread, but I merged the draft discussion thread into this one.

Also moved it to the Trail News [HTML_REMOVED] Maintenance board since it was previously on the Article Discussion board which is no longer used.

Final Draft Management Plan has been released:

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/mp-fprd/south-chilcotin-mts-and-big-crk-mp-fprd.pdf?v=1461264721725

Comments are due by May 22, 2016

Haven't had a chance to read it, gotta run!