I recently attended the Sunshine Coast Trail Society information meeting in Roberts Creek.
I consider Mount Elphinstone to be sacred, a place of peace and quit, a place to walk or ride my mountain bike rapt in awe and amazement. I do not need maintained or improved trails, I never have. When riding, I ride on existing roads and trails. When I come across new or improved trails or jumps and ramps built with excavators, I feel violated. When I hike to the top of Elphinstone and my peace is interrupted by some lazy idiot on an ATV, I feel violated. When enjoying the small ponds on Elphinstone and their banks are ripped up by ATVs, I feel violated.
I understand that the funding for these "improvements" are from our taxes and are meant to help out-of-work forestry workers, but wouldn't this money be better spent repairing fish habitat, fish habitats that have been destroyed by bad forestry practices?
May I suggest to those who need thrills, maybe you folks can visit Disney-land or maybe join the military, and those folks who need improved trails move to the city.
No more trail building on our mountain - in respect of Mother Earth.
Esteban Henry
Roberts Creek