The 4th-Annual Quads.ca Province-Wide Trail Clean-Up
Various locations around BCSeptember 18/10
Written by Greg
Lower Mainland Zone
Our 4th-Annual Quads.ca Province-Wide Trail Clean-Up (and our 5th Lower Mainland clean-up) was once again going to be at Lost Creek FSR, a favourite dumping ground for cheap, selfish, inconsiderate, useless idiots who would rather spend time and gas money to come all the way out to a FSR to illegally dump their crap than pay a nominal dumping fee at the landfill.
A week before the clean-up date, Mrs. Wanderer got busy on the phone and contacted everyone we needed to contact, and made all the necessary arrangements for the use of the landfill, bin, refreshments, etc. Jan, you did an FANTASTIC job! THANK YOU for taking the time to do this.
On the morning of the clean-up, I rolled out of bed at the crack of 6:45am, after a week of working double shifts. Three hours sleep; not bad considering. It was raining hard; I got a little wet loading up my truck, and thought to myself "this is going to suck". But as I headed east, the rain let up, and it was almost sunny when I hit Sylvester Road. I suddenly realized that we probably didn't have anything to turn the hotdogs because it wasn't one of the things we had addressed, so I phoned Reidler who happened to be at Canadian Tire dropping off used oil, and got him to buy a set of tongs.
When I rolled up to the meeting location at around 8:45am, those who were there looked at their watches. No, it's true, it wasn't 9:00 yet and your watches didn't all stop. Apparently my reputation for being late preceeded me. lol
Well, this was a nice greeting. A truck-load of household garbage that some lesser beings had dumped, right in our parking area. I was thinking that it was awful considerate of them to leave it at the side of the road instead of throwing it down the embankment.
We started cleaning up this unsightly mess first. It actually went fairly quickly, as most of us were there and hadn't separated into smaller groups yet. During this process, we found identifiers which were handed to the RCMP officer. Klein family, if you want any of your prescription medications or your cut-up credit card, the police have them. Was it really cheaper to drive all the way up here than to pay the dump fee? Real classy of you.
Once we had bagged up all of the Klein family's garbage, we tried to yank out a stubborn roll of carpet and underlay that was rolled up in a tarp and covered with a large pile of dirt and yard waste, but it didn't want to budge. Reidler hooked up his rear winch to the tarp and just pulled out the whole works like it was nothing. A couple of cabin owners stopped by and thanked us for being there; it's nice to be noticed once in a while. Steve from Super Save Disposal came rumbling up the road and dropped off our bin; thanks for coming out on a Saturday morning, Steve!
Once we were done with our parking area, it was time to head up the road to see what we could find. The usual areas were again packed with garbage, so we had our work cut out for us! Most headed off in small groups. Mrs. Wanderer stayed at base camp to answer questions from the many people who stopped by during the day. Jax and Cedtia headed up Murdo. I stayed on the main road, and at the next unloading location, I stopped to chat with a couple of quadders with a black Dodge pickup who were unloading their quads. They turned out to be lurkers on Quads.ca who had come up to ride; when they realized that we were holding a trail clean-up they decided to help out instead. Thanks, guys, that was really great! They also informed me that there was a HUGE mess of garbage dumped over the embankment at this location. I got out to assess it, and yep, there was at least as much garbage here as there was at our parking lot. Except THESE dumpers weren't as considerate as the last bunch and had to toss it over the side instead of leaving it at road level. Or maybe they weren't as lazy as the Kleins. Anyways, I forgot to take a photo.
I headed up the road a bit more, and found MCP working in the parking area for the Davis Lake trails, where somebody had dumped their old shed. We cleaned that area up, then he went back to grab his trailer to load up the bags. Jax and Cedtia rode up, and I told them about the garbage over the embankment by the black Dodge, and they headed down the road to work on it.
I proceeded up the road to the first "shooting" spot, where some of gang had already hauled up a trailer-load of crap from the "target area"; a big-screen TV, microwave oven, and lots of unrecognizeable items, all shot to pieces. Wanderer informed me that he had gotten a nail in one of the Cherokee's tires, fixed with a plug. We got a bit of rain here, just enough to make us put on our rain gear, and of course it stopped once we had our rain gear on. I spent my time there raking up and bagging shotgun shells; that's ALL I did for the entire time I was there. If the recreational shooters who use this area could just pick up THEIR OWN shells, the place wouldn't be nearly as bad. How tough can it be? Pure laziness. We cleaned up most of the junk from this area; there's still the occasional shotgun shell lying around, but we got the bulk of it. The law of diminishing returns applies here.
A couple in a silver Dodge dually who earlier had headed up the road with an empty truck had found out about our clean-up. When they came back down the road, their pickup bed was FULL of garbage that they had picked up just because they wanted to help. That was really unexpected and totally cool. I sent them down to the bin and told them to make sure they got some food; Mrs. Wanderer took care of them.
The metal and other large items and some of the bags were loaded into 1bigdog's trailer and MCP's trailer, and the rest of the bags were loaded into the RCMP truck, which was already three-quarters full from picking up the full bags that we had left at the side of the road. MCP discovered that his ATV brakes weren't good enough to stop his ATV while towing a loaded trailer, so Wanderer hooked the trailer up to his Cherokee to bring it back down to the bin.
It was now around 12:30 so we headed back to the parking area to unload the trailers and the RCMP truck, and then it was time for LUNCH! We washed up with the water and anti-bacterial soap that the Wanderers brought, using Reidler's excellent flatdeck for a counter-top. Mrs. Wanderer cooked up the hotdogs, and we sat around and relaxed for a bit. Nice having a hot lunch on the trail. I think a lot of us were fairly hungry by then; I know I was. As promised, Cedtia and I kept up with each other on the doughnut-eating front, consuming a total of three each during the course of the day. Btw, Bigdirdy, those strawberry crumbles were excellent; good choice! We thought of you as we ate your treats. Even though Treds couldn't attend the clean-up, he had loaned us his mini-propane BBQ and a large cooler. Thanks, Treds!
Two of Reliable Auto Towing's trucks headed up the road to recover a van that somebody had dumped off a cliff. The older truck still had an unpainted black-primered passenger door from a little incident during our 2007 trail clean-up.
I could have EASILY just stayed in my chair for the rest of the day and relaxed in the warm sun (yes, the weather had cleared up and it was great!), but sadly, there was more garbage that needed our attention so we headed back up the road. Mrs. Wanderer said she'd clean up the camp, and told us to get going. Our first stop was at the area by the black Dodge. Jax and Cedtia had done a fantastic job of cleaning up the "surface" garbage earlier, including a hillside full of soiled diapers (and I'm REALLY glad I wasn't there for that!). The crew used Wanderer's winch to haul up some heavy items like a freezer, and by the time we were done the place looked pretty good. Once again, 1bigdog's trailer was filled to capacity.
We headed further up the road, but came to a halt at about the 5 km mark as one of the Reliable tow trucks was positioned across the road while he recovered a white Ford van that had been dumped WAY down the cliff, and which turned out to be stolen out of Vernon. This proved to be an exciting and entertaining part of the day, as the operator of the Dodge tow truck had to extend his boom and perform a really steep pull, and both of his front tires were off the ground for much of the recovery. The second truck had one of his front tires off the ground a bit as well, and even though he had a wheel-lift anchor biting into the road surface, his truck was sliding backwards as he pulled on the van, the anchor carving a furrow into the road. Lots of photos were taken here, because the road was blocked and we were all standing around.
During the recovery, Jax and Cedtia came back down the road, and reported that the next few kms were now free of garbage, except for a gravel-pit full of shooting debris (shot shells, etc.). They started cleaning it up, but three sets of people showed up and started shooting and not necessarily in a safe manner, so they wisely left. By the time the recovery was over, we decided to call it day since the road was fairly clean. Some of us headed back to the bin and unloaded 1bigdog's trailer. Reidler and The Outlaw went for a ride, as did MCP, Jax, and Cedtia. While we had been gone, Mrs. Wanderer and a couple of other quadders who had shown up had moved our piles of metal over by the side of the bin; hopefully those quadders will join Quads.ca. One had just turned 70 years old; wouldn't know it by looking at him.
Since the District of Mission had asked us to keep the garbage separate from the metal, we realized that we had to figure out what to do with the pile of metal. Jax made a call to Banshrider, her brother-in-law, and he said he'd come pick it up on Sunday. Perfect! By the way, Telus cell phones work here; Rogers cell phones do not.
Our small but dedicated crew did an AWESOME job. It was a lot of hard work, but it was "working" with friends, and from the comments in the discussion thread I think everyone had fun. You folks make me proud to be an ATV rider.
I'd like to thank the following for their support:Super Save Disposal of Surrey, for their donation of a 40-cubic-yard bin and transportation for the bin. The District of Mission, for the free use of the Mission Landfill. Tim Hortons (33291 1st Avenue in Mission), for their donation of an 80-cup pot of coffee, 40-cup pot of hot water, tea bags, bottled water, 4 boxes of doughnuts, sugar, creamers, stir sticks, cups, recycle bags, and garbage bags. Poly-Source Industries of Langley, for the donation of pop, juice, and snacks (thanks, Bigdirdy!). The BC Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and the Arts, and the BC Ministry of Forests and Range, for the donation of heavy-duty contractor garbage bags, and for covering miscellaneous expenses. The Mission RCMP for the use of one of their 4x4 trucks. Reliable Towing of Mission for towing and recovery services. Thank you very much; your generosity has helped make our clean-up a success. |
Update: Super Save Disposal reported that we filled the 40-cubic-yard bin to 3/4 of it's weight capacity.
• Quads.ca volunteers receive certificate from Mission
• Discussion thread for this clean-up
• Trail Clean-Up discussion forum