Not being golfers but rather people who enjoy the idea that golf is a good walk spoiled (words which may or may not have been uttered by Mark Twain, apparently), we have taken advantage of uncommonly lovely June weather to hike on several weekend days. It helps that we are usually out of the house by 7 a.m. because the heat might have caused us to conclude that hiking is a good walk wasted.
As we have plodded along Balancing Rock, Fern Forest, Summit Creek and Lady’s Slipper trails, I have been filled with gratitude and admiration for those who went before us, axes, chainsaws, grub hoes, mattocks and pulaskis at the ready, and often carried in for miles before being put to use. In my fantasy, Ralph Moore built all of these trails himself, like a modern day Paul Bunyan, but in truth dozens of volunteers have left their blood, toil, sweat and tears behind so that we may follow more comfortably in their footsteps.
Last Saturday, I got a smile as we descended from our hike on Lady’s Slipper Trail. Out of curiosity, I opened the ubiquitous little cupboard that contains a sign-in book (something that we do not, for better or worse, bother with) and found inside a handful of brochures produced by the East Kootenay Environmental Society (Creston Valley Branch) and the Ministry of Forests. It felt a bit like I had opened a little door and entered a time warp. The publication does not include a date, but it’s been a long time since EKES (or EEKS! as I liked to think of it) morphed into Wildsight. The brochure does acknowledge Moore as the trail foreman and, curiously, attributes the text to Tanna Patterson and the illustrations to Kim Asquith and Tana Paterson. I don’t know the reasons for the spelling anomaly and I could have picked up the phone to ask, but I will await Tanna’s call for explanation.
The brochure brought memories back to when the trail was first opened. Thirty numbered signposts dotted the trail at that time, with the last, according to the brochure, signifying The End, which is the peak of Goat Mountain. Other signposts served to point out interesting tidbits about plants, animals, views and the like, with the brochure allowing hikers to create their own self-guided tour. If memory serves, Balancing Rock Trail also had numbered posts.
I only noticed one remaining post on Saturday and it was badly rotted at the base. But it was enough to get me thinking about how valuable signage is on hikes, especially for visitors who aren’t necessarily familiar with the area. Good luck finding Lady’s Slipper Trail at all if all you have is the recently published Day Hikes in the Creston Valley map. The map does get you to Foster Road, but several forks in the road could easily divert travelers before they come across the first curiously placed sign along the way. That first sign, which stands out boldly, is on the forest service road, a good kilometre before the second sign, also on the roadside, directs hikers to the actual trail. We parked near the first sign. It has been years since we hiked the trail and we thought we had forgotten that it seemed to be pretty much a road. I can only imagine what strangers to the area must think. The minimal description on the reverse side of the map isn’t helpful either, indicating the trail comprises a 10-kilometre, four-hour hike. The spanking new crestonvalleytrails.ca, fortunately, is more accurate. It informs of a 4.8-kilometre round trip hike that takes about three hours. There is no reference to the two signs, though.
I suspect that signage is a priority for the revitalized trails organization, and I hope signage is planned through the eyes of a visitor. Picking up Fern Forest Trail from the parking area at what was once Summit Creek Park isn’t easy unless you know where you are going, and we only learned about the delightful, possibly unnamed trail that parallels Summit Creek on the opposite side from Highway 3 from a friend. “Take a right behind the tree that the sign-in box is on,” he said. That trail, with rushing water sound effects the entire way, intersects a logging road, but there is no indication that it continues on the other side for another hour before it peters out (assuming there is a fork that we have somehow missed).
I point out these quirks in the available information not to be critical, but in the hope that improved signage won’t give visitors the impression that they have been sent off on a wild goose chase. Our scenery is one of our greatest assets. Trails help take locals and visitors alike to spots that celebrate views and our natural history. We can’t afford to ignore the trails that so many worked so hard to build.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.