Dakota Ridge is attracting more than just skiers, much to the frustration of volunteer trail groomers who have to clean up after rogue all-terrain vehicle (ATV) riders “rip around on the trails and trash all our work,” trail groomer Sue Duxbury said.
The latest incident occurred some time on Saturday, Jan. 14 after the mountain closed at 3 p.m. When the Jackrabbit ski program opened the next morning, there were large ATV ruts in some of the trails, which had to be fixed by the volunteers.
“It’s one or two people screwing it up for a lot of others,” Duxbury said. “They have no idea how much work is involved. When they put the big ruts in the trails with their ATVs, we actually have to blade that whole area. It’s laborious.”
Duxbury said that “it’s getting worse,” and that the ATVers seem to be venturing farther afield, ruining more trails. It’s happening about once a month, although it’s not clear if the incidents are separate or if there are repeat offenders.
“For the 10 minutes they have fun ripping around, it’s 10 hours of work and 10 hours of gas,” Duxbury said. “Plus, all the people who have bought into Dakota Ridge and have passes can’t use those trails when we’re working on them.”
The trail groomers are volunteers, and the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) pays for the gas. Each incident costs taxpayers around a couple of hundred dollars in gas and machine costs, according to park supervisor Michel Frenette, who is reminding everyone that recreational ATV use is not allowed anywhere on Dakota Ridge.
“We have cameras on site, so we’re hoping that the cameras captured who did it,” Frenette said. “We have an ongoing file with the RCMP. We treat this as vandalism so we’re going to proceed with that.”
For the time being though, Frenette said they are trying to solve the problem with education instead of enforcement.
“There may be a possibility that people did not know,” Frenette said. “We want to spread the word that Dakota Ridge – and the ski trail especially – is not for quads [ATVs] or snowmobiles. They have other places they can go.”
Sunshine Coast ATV Club member Dave Gibson was quick to say he didn’t want club members painted with the same brush.
“It’s a couple of yahoos wrecking a really good thing. I’d like to see this stop before it gets any worse,” Gibson said. “They can go anywhere, just not there. Just stay off the trails.”
The trails are the most labour-intensive to fix, but they aren’t the only things being vandalised on Dakota Ridge.
“They also have drunken parties in the warming hut,” Duxbury said. “They leave garbage and condoms and broken beer bottles. That takes us 10 minutes to clean up – it’s horrible, but we clean it up. What’s really time consuming is the trail damage.”
There are only eight volunteer trail groomers taking care of Dakota Ridge. They work about four days a week on their own time.
If anyone has information about ATVers on Dakota Ridge, they are asked to contact Sunshine Coast RCMP at 604-885-2266, or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
