BurningChrome

Yeah, just call it an off road license fee or trail access fee. As long as the money goes back into the resource (where have I heard that before?) in the form of creating new trails, maintaining them, and enforcement, then most would not mind paying it. Interesting. I hadn't heard this before but now I'm curious about it. I'd think that if you gave the example of the trail system in Ontario that most people would be all over paying some fees to get something like that.

Most of these things are already illegal or "banned" so obviously bans don't work.

Unfortunately those folks exist in every user group. Hopefully enforcement will catch up with them eventually. If AEP would listen to what the responsible OHV groups have been advocating for years - trail use fees, courses to get licensed, etc. - some of that money could be used to hire more enforcement among other things.

I'm not talking about parks or any area in particular. I'm just saying that we've already messed everything up by screwing with the apex predators whether through hunting, logging, OHV use, farming, or whatever. I'm not a hunter but I agree with albertatrout that we need to be careful about banning activities outright especially if there's no science to back it up. At the backcountry trails open house I had an OHV user ask me why it was ok for us to torture cutties by catching them, releasing them, then catching them again but it isn't ok for them to use certain trails in Waiparous any more. More to the point, section 32(1) of SARA "prohibits killing, harming, harassing, capturing or taking individuals of a species listed as endangered, threatened or extirpated" but there's an exception made to it for catch and release angling in the case of west slope cutts. I really don't want people to take a look at that and wonder why there's a special exemption, especially when we all know there's still fish mortality that occurs through catch and release no matter how careful you are.

I think they do because we keep killing the apex predators that normally keep the herds in check.

I'm pretty sure they won't be starting any work until June or so. They need to bring in heavy equipment to do the work and it'd just rip up the trails if they aren't dry.

Right now everything is still open. There will be temporary closures while they're working on trails and they won't close Lost Knife until they open the new section. The trail to Waiparous falls will need a lot of "deterrent" work before they can even hope to close it. I think the plan is to reroute the trail to Margaret lake away from the river crossing or put significant debris on the river bank. Here's a picture I took of the trail map with the future closures in sort of red/purple. IMG_20160224_203448 by Marc Fossi, on Flickr

Lots of trail closures that cross cuttie creeks in waiparous. Bridges over creeks everywhere else.

Yeah my off road group has worked with Cows & Fish on a few projects now and they're decent folks. If you're going to the Chinook Waters thing in Lethbridge next weekend we can talk about it.

No he wasn't there. I thought it was a pretty informative session but it was also my first time going.

They probably don't have a PR firm writing it for them...

On Thursday I was at the Westslope Cutthroat Trout stakeholder workshop put on by Cows & Fish. Folks from AEP, TUC, TU Oldman, Spray Lakes Sawmills, some ranchers, and a couple reps from the Crowsnest Pass Quad Squad were also there. Here's what the Quad Squad released shortly afterwards: https://oldmanwatershed-council.squarespace.com/blog-posts/2016/2/19/news-release-from-the-crowsnest-pass-quad-squad

I think either one would be fine without one necessarily being better than the other. I know lots of guys who use a 7wt and lots who use an 8wt. Just buy one of each

This made me lol.

There are many who think that dams made the 2013 floods worse. Wonder what happens when they rush the Springbank dam to appease the squeaky wheels and it lets go during a flood event. Personally I have no sympathy for the people who are building and re-building multimillion dollar houses in Rideau and Roxboro if they get flooded again. As the saying goes, some people have more dollars than sense.

Not sure exactly what this entails since Metro articles are pretty sparse. Wasn't able to find a similar story on the Herald website. http://www.metronews.ca/news/calgary/2016/02/16/calgary-to-fix-fish-habitats-after-2013-flood.html

I'll be attending the one in Cochrane next week.

Makes sense being site specific. No different really than having more luck with hoppers off the grassy banks.

I think the eddy is a perfect spot to launch a pontoon, water master, etc. out of. If people used the berm spot for drift boats and the eddy for pontoons it'd help relieve a bit of congestion at least.

Didn't SRD and F&W pay for the repairs after 2005?

Patagonia has a minimalist jacket that doesn't break the bank. You could also check out non-fishing waterproof jackets if you're just looking for something to keep the rain off. Seems like if you add a couple fly box pockets and a zinger to a Gore Tex jacket it pretty much doubles the price.

Heh, I can http://store.arbusa.com/ARB-Fridge-Freezer-50-Qt-10800472-P3626.aspx

Probably the most thorough comparison I've seen. http://expeditionportal.com/the-big-chill-overland-journals-cooler-test/

So what about mining, O&G, and logging? Those are even longer term, deeper damage, and cover far more area. I always find it humourous when people on this forum lose their minds over quads but excuse anything that industry does because that's where they get their paycheques. Not saying that quads don't do any damage, because yeah they do, but there's definitely a double standard around here.