Lay of the Land

I keep getting folks asking me about where its cool to go and where its not, so I thought I'd throw up this quick and dirty 'Lay of the Land' screen-shot. While this doesn't display private property in the sense that we know it; that is, individual or corporately owned lands, it does bring across two large sections that we have to be careful with; First Nations treaty lands (pink shading) and Conservation group lands (green shading).

In both cases the bottom line is that we are allowed on the land with non-motorized vehicles - but we are not authorized to build new trails or technical trail features on said lands. I've spoken with the Penticton First Nations council and their position is, and I quote: "we aware that non-treaty individuals are using their lands for recreation, and band council is currently 'tolerating' these treaty violations, but the individuals in question need to be aware that they may be evicted at any moment, without warning or explanation".

In the case of the Nature Trust / Land Conservancy / BC Parks areas its similar, save for the stern tone about imminent evictions... That is, enjoy hiking / biking, but don't blaze any new trails. There appears to be tolerance for maintenance of existing trail networks, but I don't know how far we can push that either as they seem to have a preference for allowing older trails to be absorbed back into the forest. So perhaps lets not test that one too much...

The image below (link), pretty-much captures the lands as a whole. If you wish further detail on what is Crown and what is private land, I urge you to visit the RDOS website where you'll get an eyeful of where boundary lines lay. If you'd like a tutorial on how to take the RDOS mappings and overlay them on Google Earth - for the ultimate show of what and where we can venture, don't hesitate to contact me. If enough folks inquire, I'll put on a presentation with the large-screen projector at my home and go through the whole set of steps from image capture, to overlay; including display of GPS tracks atop Google Earth (and) the RDOS overlays - allowing for a three-layer display that is nearly pin-point perfect in delineating land ownerships in full 3D.

The more we empower ourselves about what lands are cool to tread on vs. what lands aren't; the less land-owner conflicts we'll have - and the more respect our club will get from the community at large. This same respect will also greatly assist us in the future when we go looking for land-tenure agreements. Click the link below to see the 'big picture'. Click on the map itself when it appears to make it a little larger. Note the (massive) amount of Crown land everywhere else... we still have loads and loads of land to trail-build on, we just need to work the system!

Andrew D.


https://cdnav.sslpowered.com/bikepenticton.com/lay.jpg

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