Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Strange case of the Air North truck carving up the Copper Haul Trail

Anyone remember the truck ruts carving up the trail on that wide, steep ascent to the quarry and the stone chute on the last Jan 18th, Alpine Vet, Twister? They didn't get into the Quarry.

However seems they tried again last weekend - that would explain the axle deep ruts going repeatedly up the hill and finally into the quarry, and the 8 foot diameter blackened hole in the snow to earth in there. Our intrepid reporter coudn't make the link between that and the appearance last Thursday of mysterious axle deep ruts from MacIntyre Marsh (the CHT start line) leading 3 miles (3 miles!) along the trail, and simply stopping...until today.

The Klondike Snowmachine Association groom most of our trail, Jon tries to pack the small sections in between and gives it some polishing and cuts out the "sweeper" trees. KSA spent 2 hours fixing up the first set of ruts, it kinda makes them annoyed when it's repeated a week or so later.

Today we hear of a story about last Thursday about an Air North 1 tonne pick-up loaded down with pallets trying to force its way the full 6 miles down the Copper Haul from Fish Lake Rd (imagine the trail carnage if he'd made it - it was a male driver, yeah, of course) when it got stuck 3 miles in. Somehow it got partly back out, but needed the help of a passing Council grader to get fully out. The young male Air North employee was very chatty, explaining how he was taking the pallets in to the Quarry way down the Copper Haul for a bush party that weekend. He must have got a different vehicle and got them in from the Lobird access road, (after a number of tries) and had his party.

The KSA repaired the hill in just over 2.5 hours of work today, tomorrow they are repairing the 3 miles of ruts at the Fish Lake rd end of the trail.

A call to Air North management revealed the employee was supposed to have taken them to the landfill. The management are annoyed about the whole affair, and having a "word" with their employee. So don't blame Air North, they are "looking into and dealing with it" and they are a most excellent sponsor of the "Reach for the Sky and Take the Beer".

If anyone knows the jolly chaps and chapesses who had the bush party would they also have a word and explain how driving a truck up a winter trail destroys possibly hundreds of people's enjoyment, can be a career stalling manouvre, and in very rare cases has been seen to induce spontaneous combustion in abandoned stuck vehicles.

While this carving around in trucks could all be thought of as a jolly old breeze, the CHT Org is fed up of it and today the CHT Org contacted the City and began the process of working with Parks and Rec to plan to emplace winter gates at the CHT access points to prevent wheeled vehicle access. The CHT will be starting a petition but if you feel strongly about this please also email douglas.hnatiuk@Whitehorse.ca stating that you support emplacing gates on the Copper Haul Trail to prevent wheeled vehicle access between Nov 1st and Mar 31st.

Well, that was serious, wasn't it boys and girls?

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