It’s that time of the year again when we ask for your support for a project we hope to do on the Slocan Valley Rail Trail. Click on this link to the Community Initiative Program of the Columbia Basin Trust and follow the instructions. The Community Engagement period is from March 29th to April 9th. This means you can offer your thoughts on the applications.
This year, we’re looking for funding to help us once again remove trees that are starting to encroach along the Rail Trail. It’s a process we go through every several years. We need to do this to allow snow to reach the tread surface of the Trail and not be blockout by the bows on coniferous trees. This helps us to groom and trackset the Trail for the winter months – a period which many of us enjoy.
You’ll find our application primarily in Area H, but we are asking for help from the surrounding RDCK Area’s E, I & F as well. All the applications are listed alphabetically, so you’ll have to scroll down a long way to find it. Please take the time to help us, thanks.
You’ll find many worthy groups looking for funding support for some great ideas. Take the time to offer your thoughts on as many of these applications as you wish. You can find a link to this program through the RDCK website

WORK ON THE RAIL TRAIL – WEEK OF MARCH 21ST – We will be doing a culvert repair south of Slocan Park on Monday or Tuesday. A second repair will be happening north of Lemon Creek between Wednesday and Friday. Heavy equipment will be working on the Trail and it may be impassable. Use caution. There will be warning sign posted around the work sites. Thanks for your understanding

You may have noticed that orange dots and flagging tape have shown up at four locations along the Slocan Valley Rail Trail. It’s that time again when the trees alongside the tread path are getting overgrown and need attention. Every few years we have to tackle the sections that have become worse. Fortunately most of our Trail doesn’t have this vegetation problem, but some areas do and that’s where we’re we’ll be focusing.
Why do we need to thin and prune these trees? As the coniferous trees grow, the canopy of their branches increasingly prevents snow from reaching the Rail Trail. This creates tree wells and bare patches that make it hard on our equipment and hard on trail users’ gear as well. If we want a recreational trail that folks can continue to enjoy year round, this becomes part of our maintenance.
This past winter, the minimal amount of snow our volunteers had to work with really highlighted the problem. How often would you be skiing from side to side on a section of the trail to stay in snow? The plus side is that as the snow melted, it has allowed us to note which trees are preventing the snow from falling on the trail, and we have marked them. What we do now will improve the Trail for the next several years.
That said, we are very conscious that some trees are in sensitive areas and we have to be creative in our approach. This Trail belongs to this community and we are all members of this community. We want to keep it beautiful.
Will all the trees marked be removed? We don’t know. Some are marked so we know they need to be dealt with. We’ve been pruning with pole saws for the past couple of years and now some of those trees are too tall; we have few choices left. Depending on funding we’re hoping to do this work sometime over the late summer or early fall. We’ll keep everyone posted on what’s happening. Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Art on the Rails! – The work of 20 Slocan Valley artists has now been installed along the Slocan Valley Rail Trail, just in time for Valentine’s Day. The artwork has been place close to Crescent Valley, Passmore, Winlaw and Slocan (Gravle Pit Rd) trailheads. Each location has five pieces within easy walking distance of the trailhead and will be there until mid-March. At the Crescent Valley Trailhead you’ll be greeted by two large-than-life snow sculptured swans made by world-famous sculptors Carl and Simone Schlichting. Also further north on the Trail you’ll find an ice sculpture created by Peter Vogelaar.

December 2, 2020 – We’re just waiting for the snow to arrive so we can start grooming the Rail Trail for all those skiers, snowshoers and walkers out there. We update our Trail Conditions page to let folks know where the latest grooming was done.

We’ve done a fair amount of brushing over the past several months. Thanks to the volunteers who came along to be part of the fun. Should make things easier when using the Rail Trail.

There are a couple or Trail work events that may be happening shortly. One is the Trail may be getting the side brush more thoroughly cut back in the next week or so (if weather allows). This means you may come across a large mowing machine so please use caution. The other event which may happen (hopefully in March) is that several culverts will be getting replaced at various locations along the Rail Trail. We’re hoping it happens in March, because our ski season is usually winding down by then.

Thanks for coming out and enjoying our Trail. Please remember we are all volunteers and rely on donations to cover many of the expenses associated with our winter grooming program. There are donation boxes near every Trailhead, or you can take advantage of the Pay Pal link on this website.

AUGUST 29TH – In the past week, we’ve resurfaced two short segments of the Trail north of Winlaw as well as rebuilt our Lemon Creek parking lot. While the material seems soft, what it is lacking is moisture to get it to set up. We’ve driven back and forth on the two segments north of Winlaw to help create a firmer lane. Our limited funds would not allow us to hire a water truck and compactor so until we get some rain, we’re asking for your understanding and to use caution in those segments. Thanks.

Remember “Dot Day”? The community event that we at the Slocan Valley Heritage Trail Society relied on for your support from to help us get needed work done on the Slocan Valley Rail Trail. Because of the Covid challenges in our community, Columbia Basin Trust and the RDCK have created a tool for so folks can do what they did at Dot Day. Here’s the link:

https://rdck.ca/…/…/grants/columbia-basin-trust-cip-aap.html

It’s simple to use. You want to check out Area H (where we are located) and then look up the application for the Slocan Valley Heritage Trail Society(just scroll down). Hopefully you’ll then say ‘yes’. The comment section is very small. (60 words or less) so you can say a few nice words about us. It is open for comments up to and including May 11th
We are applying for $6,000 for the construction of a new outhouse in the south part of the Trail. Trust us – we know folks use them, and Trail volunteers maintain them.
Please share this online link and remind friends and neighbors to show their support support the Rail Trail. And while you’re at it, check out the other applications. You can offers feedback on more than one!
If you live in area H or the Village of Slocan, go to the RDCK online Engagement Tool and write a short comment supporting the Trail project for 2020. Thanks for your support!

To: Rail Trail supporters:

The Province, with the help of a Trails Advisory Body, has issued a survey to Trail users to review trail strategies for BC.

We feel as the Board of Directors of the SVHTS, that it is very important for trail users to answer this survey and express their support for non-motorized trails specifically.

Many questions you will encounter are vague “feel good” statements of inclusivity and respect for different user groups. Very few questions deal with non-motorized trails or separate trails for different user groups.

We encourage you to pay special attention to comment sections where users can best express their opinions on the importance of non-motorized trails and separate trails for motorized recreation and industrial purposes.

Thank you for supporting our beautiful Slocan Valley Rail Trail.

Here is the survey link (deadline for submissions Feb.28):

https://engage.gov.bc.ca/trailsstrategyreview/