Action needed by April 30, 2014!The South Chilcotins are a few hours north of Vancouver/Whistler. It is a remote, wild, and beautiful area which has a massive alpine/subalpine singletrack network that is currently open to bikes. It is bike-packing heaven, if such a thing were ever to exist. I figured bikepacking.net would be a relevant place to post.
If the Chilcotins were in the USA it would all be Federal Wilderness and bikes would be banned.
In 2010 the Chilcotins became part of BC Parks. BC Parks is not known for being bicycle friendly but it was hoped that Parks would recognize the long history of bike use and grandfather this use into the park. BC Parks is now accepting comments on a management plan for the park.
Part of their recommendations are to limit recreation in the parks with mountain biking being the focus of restrictions, along with float plane usage which is one of the main ways to access the area. If you fall into any of the three categories below please take a read of some of the material and send some comments to BC Parks.
- you have visited the area before to ride or hike
- you plan to visit the area in the future
- you wish you could visit the area
BC has a large tourism economy so BC Parks and the BC Ministry of Environment take comments from visitors to BC seriously.
Comments are due April 30, 2014. Here is a concise summary by LeeLau:
http://www.pinkbike.com/u/leelau/blog/chilcotin-parks-plan-public-comments-needed-by-april-30.htmlFor more information and to comment:
Link - main management plan page:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/lillooet_mp.htmlLink - South Chilcotins / Big Creek Park:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/background-documents/big-creek_south-chilcoltin/sc-mtns&big-crk-draft-mp.pdf Link - Yalakom Park:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/background-documents/yalakom/yalakom-dmp.pdfSubmit comments online here:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/lillooet-dmp-online-comments.htmlSubmit comments via PDF here:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/mgmtplns/lillooet/generic-dmp-comments.pdfThanks for helping!
A few pics to see what is at stake:
Credit for all pics to Pat Mulrooney (blog:
http://patmulrooney.blogspot.com/2012/08/castles-and-fortresses-in-chilcotin.html)
