Canmore Kids’ Course, Round 2

This past weekend, I was back in Canmore at the Nordic Centre for another IMBA workshop. It was but one event within a large selection of activities going on in the area during the Canmore Trails Weekend. Our goal for this workshop was to focus our attention on the 1 km singletrack “novice loop” that we began construction on during our last visit.

Recap: This loop was designed with a primary goal of providing the Nordic Centre with a singletrack trail loop that was close enough to the facilities that it could be used for children’s races. A group of volunteers, along with myself and Mark Schmidt flagged the proposed loop during our last visit as well as constructed the first 150 metres or so of trail.

Perhaps due to the massive number of activities available, turn out was smaller than expected. That being said, those who did show up were some of the most dedicating, upbeat volunteers any crew leader could ask for.

With shovels, pulaskis, loppers, rakes and MacLeods, our small gang set out with good cheer to continue work on the trail.

Throughout the next two days, we were blessed with nice weather, lots of roots and a few laughs. One little volunteer, age 3, addressed the 24″ wide trail tread with the following comment, “Daddy, this is too wide for singletrack”. Needless to say, we were in stitches over that…

By Sunday afternoon at 3:00 pm we had managed to extend the amount of finished singletrack to about 300 metres, almost half without mechanized assistance. To boot, one of our crew, Ryan aka “Backslope Masta”, selflessly laboured away on some of the previous built trail, refining the backslopes, creating proper outslopes and basically making the trails look ever-so-nice!

A big thank you to everyone who came out to help build over those two days. Your dedication to helping to make the Canmore Nordic Centre a place for all riders is impressive to say the least. Enjoy June and I hope to see you all in July for our next round of workshops in Canmore.

~ Daniel