At the September general committee meeting, the director of operations and protective services for the Town, Tarmo Uukkivi, was asked whether winter trails could be maintained for the enjoyment of residents.
The issue was first raised at the meeting by Councillor Bob Stone who said he heard from a constituent who loves trying to stay active and questioned whether the Fairy Vistra Trail could be opened up through the winter. Others quickly piped in.
Councillor Jonathan Wiebe said he had also been contacted back in the summer by a local resident about plowing the Fairy Vistra Trail in the winter and suggested that perhaps that could be included as a budget discussion item. Huntsville Mayor Karin Terziano said she had been contacted about the availability of the Hunters Bay Trail for winter use.
Everyone looked to Uukkivi for an answer. He told council that the Town’s plowing equipment can’t get to those trails, “so even just this morning in discussions with our parks team, the plows, if they were to go down, they’re very, very heavy equipment — even the sidewalk plows are heavy — they would go down this trail, and if you could picture it being stuck somewhere in the middle of the woods and then we would have to get some kind of heavy equipment in along the trail to get the plow unstuck,” he said, adding that clearing those trails would be a very manual and labor-intensive process. “And what we would end up having to do is prioritize whether we do trails or sidewalks, but we wouldn’t be able to do both given the equipment and manpower we have with the Town.”
He said alternatively, the service could be contracted out “but we wouldn’t be able to do that for all of the trails in the Town because some of them—we wouldn’t be allowed to push snow into certain places because, for example, the MTO corridor we’re not allowed to push snow onto those corridors, and so forth,” explained Uukkivi.
Councillor Brian Thompson expressed concern about the possibility of damaging the trails and the work that would be required to fix them. “I think that if we’re going to pursue that then we should be looking at alternatives to those two trails,” he added. “I think the damage that could be done long term, I think would be a real problem…” Councillor Dan Armour agreed with Thompson and suggested the possibility of promoting cross-country skiing on them.
“The idea of opening it up to cross country and grading it for something like that, I think at the very least we should consider that when looking at the cost because there would be a lot of people who would use those trails for cross country and I don’t think you would need to do the same type of snow plowing or have heavy equipment on it…,” said Deputy Mayor Nancy Alcock. Terzino said she did not think the Hunters Bay Trail would be good for cross-country skiing but it would be good for walking and snowshoeing.
Councillor Tim Withey said he agreed with everything that had been said, but added that “if there is some sort of winter maintenance coming up that involved private contractors that would be probably next to impossible because of insurance issues. The market is virtually closed to snow plowing operations anyway. I had somebody in my office yesterday desperately looking for a solution and it’s a really tough market out there to get anybody to do it. So if we were gonna… try to find a contractor to do it, I think it would be impossible…”
Wiebe said he would circle back with the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce who acquired some equipment years ago that could possibly be used maybe not on established trails but to create new ones.
Huntsville CAO Denise Corry also reminded committee that the municipality does maintain the Lions Lookout field and Muskoka Heritage Place. “Maybe we just need to do a little bit of a better job advising residents that those are options that we do maintain throughout the winter season. So we’ve got Conroy Park, MHP, the Lions Lookout field. We have the indoor track which is great if it’s really icy. So I think maybe we can just focus on doing a better job of promoting those,” she said.
Wiebe said the requests he heard also involved opening up arteries to enable people to walk to town, not just for recreational purposes.
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Conroy Park is not maintained in the winter, is it? And don’t you have to pay to enter MHP? I think the only option is the Lions Lookout field. I love having that option and use it frequently, but I am one of the people that wish there were more options. I am envious of people who live in London and can run in Springbank Park all year long. I know, they tend to not get as much snow as us down there though.
I agree. Utilize what is already there. Rather than scooping/plowing to remove, what about packing down using a snowmobile, and you could even consider having a classic trail set down beside a walking track especially down Camp Kitchen, up the trail to the Lions Lookout Track, and then around the track. A fully connected trail that is already used for fitness and walking
It’s a great thing to consider but opens up other liabilities and expenses to a “maintained” trail.
I agree, promote the use of existing trails, services and consider XCskiing.
A big challenge is the lack of sidewalks and narrow roads for walking in winter.
It’s a terrible patchwork and a hazard for pedestrians.
Opening up trails in winter means you have to dive out of the way of speeding snowmobiles and breathe stinking 2-stroke exhaust which lingers long after they are gone. At least you can hear them coming miles away. So can everyone else within miles of the trail.
Both of these trails are used by many walkers twelve months of the year. It would be an unnecessary expense for the town and taxpayers to try to prepare the trails for this type of usage. Also couldn’t get the weather to cooperate.
As suggested in the article focus on promoting all the options that we have already.