A lot of trail work isn’t very cool or sexy. Most work is not slatting a stylish stunt, smoothing a berm, or shaping a step-down. Regular maintenance is important (and never ends!) and can be extremely satisfying.

Recently the FVMBA Trail Crew returned to Merv’s to continue the work started in the summer. Those who ride, run, and hike Merv’s know that you’ll get wet feet if you venture on it after a rain when other trails have already dried out.

The first step in fixing such issues is to find the source of the problem. Here, several culverts from the road focus the water run-off adding to an already challenging water management problem. With such high run-off and such a large area affected, rerouting the trail would only transfer the problem to the new line, so we decided to keeping the current line. This meant we needed to figure out the best way to separate the water from the trail. A combination of ditching, drains, bridges, and rock armouring were the strategies we chose. Both cedar and rock were readily available.

Check out some before and after pics!

We hope that your next visit to Merv’s is dryer than past visits. There’s still more water issues but the crew made an excellent start and we’ll be back again to do more. Happy trails!

This work is made possible through funding provided by the Government of Canada through the Canada-British Columbia Workforce Development Agreement via a Community Workforce Response Grant, Youth Community Partnership stream.

Here’s a few more pics of the recent work on Merv’s…