Lolah is being torn down

[ryan]

Well, on my walk up to school today i noticed one of those big silver BurnabyCity vans parked at the Lolah trail-head. I knew that it was gonna be bad news right away.

Sure enough, on my walk home after class i rerouted down the trail, and they've started plowing all fo the jumps, and dissambling all of the little structures. The whole first section is leveled already. The middle section is littered with logs and they may or may not bother with it, since it's currently unrideable anyways. The whole trail will be leveled by the end of the week, no doubt about it.

It's a crying shame, twice now that trail has been massacred, and it was so much fun in both of its states. I guess all we can do is write letters to the city, not give up the good fight.

It really bothers when the city of burnaby closes trails on burnaby mountain (often for "environmental reasons" -weenie boy, eyes of the forest) when at the same time they are ripping up half the mountain to build a ?!speed skating rink!? and townhouses. I guess eliminating entire tracts of forest is more environmentally responsible than cutting a 2 foot wide trail through it. IT BOGGLES MY MIND!! :mad:

In the case of Lolah, the trail was probably closed for liability and safety reasons, yet they have a city-funded skatepark 5 km down the road, which, if you've ever been there, has seriously dangerous transitions, and a friggin death bowl(from a skateboarder perspective -bikes aren't allowed you know!). I think the designer and the insurer were both on crack.

In addition, a mere 200m away from Lolah, runs the Trans-Canada bike trail, which is wide gravel, and downhill. Reaching 50 or 60km/hr on that trail is not uncommon. Wise or not, THAT is dangerous, far more dangerous than anything on Lolah.

what a piss off...

[counterpoint]

first when lolah went up - amazing. Then all the crazy and original bridges got torn down. Then some of the sweetest gap jumps I have seen, go up later. I was just out there the other day filming Ryan Hayes on those new crazzzzzy jumps. Such craftmenship! That big new gap is huge and I don't know how anyone could clear that. Hayes packed into the rocks. Anyways kudos to those guys that didn't give up. I've had some red wine and now I am said about this news. Anyways, great job guys - i'm sure your stuff will show up again.

[mike]

ahhh dammit :(
its pointless-why does the city bother? somebody will just go build something sicker now

[03Scream]

i loved that trail :mad: dam fuckin city

[~Jaurey~]

Originally posted by ryan
It really bothers when the city of burnaby closes trails on burnaby mountain (often for "environmental reasons" -weenie boy, eyes of the forest) when at the same time they are ripping up half the mountain to build a ?!speed skating rink!? and townhouses. I guess eliminating entire tracts of forest is more environmentally responsible than cutting a 2 foot wide trail through it. IT BOGGLES MY MIND!! :mad:


That pisses me off. :mad:

[synchro]

I work on a casual basis for Burnaby Parks and Rec. I will talk to a few people and see what I can find out.

[Ipecac]

RIP. first sasamat and now lolah.

'cac

[that person]

noooooooooooooo! that was my favorite trail in the whole entire world! its so pointless for the city to be tearing that down because some one will just rebuild it and eventually if they keep tearing it down itll cost more money than if some one sued for getting hurt

[ryan]

drops halfway down Snake are demolished as well:(

[David]

:eek:
wjat is this world coming too:(
thats such a piss of, that was an awsome trail, they better not mess with nicoles:mad:

[barry]

my prayers are with you all tonight:cry:

[shorerat]

this is the first Ive ever heard of this trail. Was it past the trans canada trail towards the restaurant or before it in the gravel p/lot. The city of Burnaby guys don't know shit about trail quality and should just leave it be. I know the trail is gone now, but let me know where it was so maybe I can try tio start to salvage whats left.

[Nelson]

Originally posted by ryan
drops halfway down Snake are demolished as well:(

The drop betweent he 2 trees? Man....burnaby parks and rec dont even own burnaby mtn..sfu bought the land a while ago, so the work on snake must be sfu...

[superman_4]

wjat is this world coming too
thats such a piss of, that was an awsome trail, they better not mess with nicoles


nicoles is too old. and it has hikers. one time i was coming down and i launched a rock and almost nailed some dumbass hiker. they would never tear down a hiker trail:rolleyes:

[manalogue]

I wish I would have seen this thread before. Me and a friend went to go ride it today, and found the bad news...That really was an incredible trail.

When we got to the trail head it was really weird because there were massive trees that were blocking it. The two of us thought that it was just recent wind damage or something. As we continued, the first small gap jump was missing. The log that was meant to be jumped over was still there, but all of the dirt was flattened. Not too much further we discovered that the jumps were all gone.

I don't think whoever leveled the trail was too concerned about land and wildlife conservation because there are seriously dozens of trees torn down making it impossible to ride the trail more than 5 metres at a time, before having to heave your bike over down'd trees. It's going to take a tonne of work to get it ridable again. There's no way you could go in with a chain saw because that would be heard way to easily. Everything would have to be cut by hand.

Does anyone know a number or contact person to talk to about the dismantling of the trails? We should all start calling this person / these people and voice our concerns as a united mountain biking group.

Also, if anyone else has any additional information, could you please post it?

Thanks.
Jack

[shorerat]

it is the city of burnaby parks and rec that goes in there and tears down the trails. I work for them so I have dealt with this first hand. usually someone sees the stunts and feels they are unsafe so they report it to city hall and we get the call to go in and rip em out. it's complete bullshit but you can't fight city hall. I went up there today to survey the damage and I think it can be rebuilt. the trick to keeping it is to build the stunts strong and safe. Adding bailouts for drops and so on would maybe save the trail in the future. I would like to start working on it soon. I don't know if anyone has rights to the maintenance of it but if you do, I would like to help in rebuilding it. With that chainsaws, we would have to wait on that. i'll see what can be done about clearing some of those trees in the future, but for now maybe we should focus on the rest of the trail. It was a good trail and it can be even better this time and hopefully will become an icon like nicoles or mels. I might be talking out of my ass but if this stuff sounds good let me know because I am willing to go ahead with it.

[ianverrier]

:thepimp: :mad: :P :o :( ;) :rolleyes: :???: :eek: :cool: :D :)

[manalogue]

Any new info on the logic for tearing down this stellar trail?

[Coop]

When was the last time you were there, that place got huuuuuuuuuge

[KenN]

Frankly guys, there's nothing new here. LOLAH has always been an illegal trail. Before management of Burnaby Mountain changed between City of Burnaby and SFU, ALL biking on Burnaby Mountain was illegal - it just wasn't enforced.

Under the new management scheme, some of the trails were closed, mostly because they were right next to streams and using them (biker or hiker) was causing a siltation problem in the streams.

Here's a simple formula: If you don't own the property (you know, there's a title deed on file with your name on it), you don't really have the right to build anything on the property. If it's publicly owned, you have the right to participate in the planning process and that's it.

The agreement with the biking community (represented at one time by BMBC) at Burnaby Mountain was to keep Mel's, Nicole's and Dead Moped open. Snake and Weenie Boy were closed. All trails to the North and Northwest - closed (Lolah is in there), except for Joe's and Cardiac. Pandora becomes hikers only (I wasn't happy about that one). This all happened like 4 years ago, folks.

The only surprise to me is that it took this long to take Lolah apart. If you try to build it up again, it WILL come down again. It's not a legal trail and nobody has the right to build there.

Kn.

[shorerat]

lolahs will live again!! ...... and then it'll get torn down

[mike]

wasnt there another trail closed recently?
off mels, before nicoles right by the creek- weenie boy?

[ryan]

weenie boy, yeah. that was a couple years ago.