Ellis Canyon & Canyon Rim trail access / egress

Today I went up and hiked what was once an access road from the Beaverdell Rd. down to the Ellis Canyon & Canyon Rim singletrack trail. This abandoned route is currently laden with deadfall and Oregon grape brush, but the trail bed beneath is in excellent condition and built on a mild pitch.

The existing route from the Garnet Fire Interpretive Center down to the main body of the trail is a nasty bit of work; it can be descended with much skill and finesse (double-black diamond), but the ascent is strictly a tough hike-a-bike effort. This is a crummy finish to an otherwise amazing downhill singletrack between the upper (Carmi XC) and lower (Garnet Interpretive) parking areas along the Beaverdell Rd. - and we aim to change it!

PACA intends on revitalizing an existing, but narrow, overgrown, old and forgotten roadbed into a singletrack trail, and create a new section of singletrack between where the old roadbed meets the Beaverdell Rd. and the Garnet Fire Interpretive Center parking area. In all, perhaps 900m of 'new trail'.

This, along the with massive revitalization effort we put in last year on the main Ellis Canyon trail, will create a much more entertaining trail between the upper Carmi XC parking area and the aforementioned Garnet Fire Interpretive Center parking lot.

This project hits the dirt on Sept.11th, so please mark it on your calendar. We'd really like to see some new faces on the trail this time around; its not cool to let the same small group of volunteers do all of the work, year after year, on what are effectively your trails!

Enjoy great singletrack? Great, then come out and kick in one afternoon per year to support what you love. There is no 'Mom' or 'Mr.Ranger' here to do the work for us!

For more information, please contact Andrew Drouin at 250.486.2443 Sept 11th, 2011 Meet at Smith & Co. at 10am for coffee prior to heading out.





Andrew