TRAILS NORTH Featuring The Trails Of Valley East: LANGDON PARK

NOTE: IN REGARDS TO THE ATV.

Sharp eyes will note a tendency towards negativity whenever the subject of ATVs comes up and a similar attitude towards Snow Machines but not as severe. The reasoning is simple, I remember the Valley before ATVs and being able to walk on trails anywhere, summer or winter. In winter snow machines riding on renegade trails made walking on those trails possible without interfering with users of the official snow machine trails. It was great to be able to go to places you could not go any other time of year such as swamps, streams, lakes, etc.

Regardless of the season anytime a ATV goes over a piece of land it leaves some form of permanent mark. When the ground is wet the ATV driver tends to experience wheel spin which strips off the top layer of an unpaved surface the end result is a rut. When the rut gets deep enough, a new trail has to be started. In drier areas, surface vegetation is stripped off resulting in a surface that is more beach then meadow. Result, trails that were once available to all users are now left almost exclusively to the ATV.

Friday, September 24, 2010

LANGDON PARK

2010-09-21

The restoration of Langdon Park took a major step forward the past week. After a very long wait we finally got the benches, ordered a year or so ago, installed and to top it off, Councillor Ron Dupuis, along with providing two of the four benches installed, paid for the installation of a sun shelter. With the official Rainbow Routes sign, installed a few months ago, we're beginning to look like a park.

Problems still exist in the nature of vandalism. ATV barriers have been removed and a short while ago someone went mad on the trail and in the neighbouring bush and created a mess. Efforts to install some form of barrier has failed as anything going up is pulled down and discarded. Person or persons unknown seem to take delight in removing barrier tape and ropes put up to try to encourage people to stay on the established trail. The idea is to have one main path and allow the bush to fill in. More tape went up yesterday and some supplies to reconstruct the ATV/snow machine/motor bike barriers were purchased. These will start to go up this weekend.

It's a pleasure to note that regardless of the time of day people are out for a pleasant stroll or just taking the dog for a walk. With the leaves changing and that wonderful Fall smell in the air, the next couple of weeks will be magic.