Apex Ski Trails

One of my most interesting projects involved the Boy Scouts. I got hired to do a simple survey to

split a property that was part of a field at Apex, which is south of Nelson. This plot is thousands

of feet high and is in a snowbelt—a valuable skiing spot. I did the survey of the property, and the

Nordic ski club started using it.

I had family living adjacent to this property, so I was quite familiar with it. The 1989 BC Winter

Games, a province-wide amateur competition, came along a couple of years after that survey.

Being a skier, I knew that the cross-country skiers needed a more extensive trail area than the

property they were using.

I was president of a separate society set up to manage a property for the Boy Scouts. I thought it

would be prudent to see if we could expand their holdings. I suggested that the skiers be allowed

a roadway that was more of a trail than a road. They could use the trail through the Boys Scout

camp and convert it into a very good cross-country ski racecourse for the BC Winter Games. I

arranged for my son-in-law to groom the course. I had the use of my own snowmobile. The BC

Snowmobile Federation (I was the president) later donated a larger and heavy-duty machine.

We groomed the trail and the result proved to be very successful. The cross-country skiers then

were allowed to use that same area every winter. It has become an exceptionally good cross-

country ski area. The club now has eight hundred to a thousand members and expensive

grooming machines to look after the trail and the roads.

I am proud that I started the trails. But I am not proud that there is some conflict between Boy

Scouts using the property in the wintertime and the skiers. We have had difficulty making sure

that the skiers do not feel that they own the property and control the use. There have been efforts

to stop the Scouts from using the same trails, which the skiers worried would wreck the

exceptionally well-groomed trails. To me, the ski trail network is like a superhighway compared

to an ordinary highway. These are super trails, well looked after and very popular.