Retired B.C. Parks supervisor Alex Jenkins isn’t happy with the state of the Black Tusk Meadows Trail, so he’s speaking out to see if he can help initiate some much needed upgrades and repair work.
The trail, officially called the Taylor Meadows Trail, runs through the meadows at the base of Black Tusk in Garibaldi Provincial Park. The starting point of the popular trail is a three- to four-hour hike from the Rubble Creek parking lot.
Jenkins said some sections of the trail have been eroded, some drainage pipes on the route are exposed and human-caused damage exists in places where hikers have created new trail sections to avoid areas where water collects on the trail.
When he discovered the state of the trail, Jenkins’s first step was to create a video about the trail in the heart of the park he supervised for seven years back in the 1970s. The nine minute narration and slide show was posted to YouTube at the end of November.
Next he wrote a letter on Jan. 11 to the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C. (FMCBC) seeking support for an initiative to revitalize the trail in time for the 2011 hiking season.
The note was copied to Chris Platz, the B.C. Parks area supervisor for Garibaldi Provincial Park, and according to Jenkins, a meeting is being held on Monday (Jan. 24) so Platz and Jenkins can discuss plans for the creation of a Black Tusk Enhancement Fund.
This all started for Jenkins when he hiked the trail in the fall for the first time in about five years.
“Things have changed a lot,” Jenkins said. “Things have dropped back considerably in the last 10 or 15 years.”
Platz admitted the trail has not received any maintenance work in the last two hiking seasons. “Those priorities have been focused elsewhere,” he said.
Platz explained that a significant amount of ranger time was focused on removing fallen trees on a number of trails this spring, and impassable trails always take priority over trails that are open and require maintenance.
Garibaldi Provincial Park has 93 kilometres of trail that attract more than 3,300 campers a year, and three seasonal park rangers do the maintenance work on the trails while providing other services for park users, he said.
The provincial government fiscal year begins in April, so Platz said planning will soon get underway for the budget year ahead and one of his priorities is to do some maintenance work on the Black Tusk Meadows Trail.
According to a report on the history of budgeting at B.C. Parks created by Alex Wallace, co-chair of the FMCBC trails committee, the B.C. Parks operations budget went from $32 million in 1995 down to $21 million in the years following and now sits somewhere around $30 million. Wallace wrote in his report that the number of parks in the province jumped from 380 in the 1990s to 815 today.
“While the number of Provincial Parks was doubled, the budget did not,” wrote Wallace. “B.C. Parks has roughly 1/20 the budget of comparable parks systems, or in other words they get a nickel budget to do the work when other parks managers get a dollar,” Wallace wrote in his report.
Jenkins said he is planning to assemble a team of people to raise money for the Black Tusk Meadows project.
“I felt pretty passionate about it and still do and that is why I’m doing what I’m doing today,” said Jenkins.
Platz said B.C. Parks has an enhancement fund program that anyone can donate to and specify if they want their money dedicated to a particular project.
“We’re always looking for organizations based on volunteers and make use of them as much as possible,” said Platz. He gave examples such as university students or outdoor clubs that are willing to donate time to improve trail conditions.
