Anyone who has been on the Whipsaw trail this year (2009) will be aware of the situation about 20 minutes away from Lodestone Lake. There's a large puddle or mud hole in the middle of the trail with an uphill exit. A broken culvert resulted in a lot of water build up in that mud hole and as a consequence, vehicles were having bigger problems trying to climb out of it. The end result was a vertical wall dug into the exit (due to spinning tires), the widening of the mud hole (due to flooding), and damaged meadow land on either side from people driving and riding around the mud hole. This was also making a mess of the stream bed up to 50 metres on either side of the trail.

This fall, the Roverlanders 4x4 club put together a maintenance team to head up there and fix the problem. They removed the broken steel culvert and other debris from the mud hole. A new culvert was installed and covered. The mud hole was left mostly intact, so it remains as a challenging obstacle yet not so challenging that people are going to try to bypass it.

For the quads and motorcycles, they built a bridge. They have no idea of how much weight the bridge can support so if you're driving a 4x4, please do not attempt to drive on the bridge!

As of November, the club still had some a few more tasks to complete, chief among them is to add rails to the bridge. From the pictures I've seen, it looks like they've done an absolutely outstanding job. When you consider how cold it gets up on the mountain the fall, it makes it their accomplishment even more laudable. Thanks, Roverlanders!

Photos by Andy Deane.

...lars