Friday 10 September 2010

Goat Main Hook-up Closed & Trail Closure

There is a Temporary Closure of a section of Goat Main Line at Goat Hook-up due to active logging adjacent to that road. This has necessitated making a 500 metre long section of Stillwater Main from the Hookup around Mile 3 1/2 north to road M1, the first road to the left, and also making road M1 two-way traffic.

When logging is finished in the coming months the loop traffic pattern will be restored to one-way as it has been for the last half dozen years or so.

Logging of Cutblock ST-245, which is in that general area of Mile 4 of Goat Main, is also impacting the Sunshine Coast Trail. The Sunshine Coast Trail section starting at about Mile 2 1/2 of Dixon Road and heading north as far as Deer Main crossing is closed due to the logging of ST-245. It's about a 3 km long stretch. Maps posted on the road crossings show how you can get around by walking on Deer Main, Goat Main and Dixon Road.

Negotiations with Western produced a trail corridor adjacent to ST-245. PRPAWS has now relocated the Sunshine Coast Trail out of the logged area and basically placed the trail into the adjacent forested zone. It is well flagged with the pink TRAIL flagging tape, and is roughed in now. It will be ready for use once the logging is finished sometime later this fall. Parts of the new trail travel over bluffs that afford nice views to the south.

Western has also finished logging ST-822 which is the beginning of the March Lake Trail section of the SCT from Spring Lake Main (at about KM 6) westward and then south. We were able to negotiate a buffer with Western that was part of the now defunct Stillwater Pilot. The buffer runs through the middle of the cutblock and there are many views of the Horseshoe Valley and the mountains to the east (Knuckleheads, Freda, etc).

There will be a couple of days sometime this month during which that trail section will be closed to allow for helicopter wind-firming (pruning) to minimize blowdown of the trail corridor, a process we very much appreciate. Closure during those couple of days will be posted on the road intersections and the alternate route via Alaska Pine Road will be shown again on posted maps.