We truly live in an amazing city where we can access the open water and hike or ski the local mountains, all within a 10 min drive. With the growing population and increasing number of trail users, the trail network needs to be maintained to avoid erosion.
Over the last ten years, The North Shore Mountain Bike Association (NSMBA) has organized armies of volunteers and worked with land owners to coordinate the maintenance and building of sustainable trails. The Trail Adoption Program (TAP) connects groups or companies that want to sponsor a trail with an experience trail builder and tools to adopt a trail each year.
"RBC’s sponsorship of TAP is unique in that it is done through the Bank’s Team Action Grant program. We give back because there are so many RBCers who love the outdoors and appreciate the work that the NSMBA does to keep our trails world class." says Laura Tacchi, Regional Enablement Coach at RBC, organizer of the RBC Trail Days and Treasurer of the NSMBA.
This year The Eydt Wealth Advisory Group sponsored the Adaptive Mountain Bike Loop on Mt. Seymour and RBC sponsored the Lower Oil Can trail on Mt. Fromme. Eric and his six year old daughter, Kiera, joined TEAM RBC for their last trail day of the year. Along with Laura and fifteen other RBC volunteers including Jennifer Philip, Manager of the Edgemont Village RBC Branch and Jim Payn, Community Manager for West and North Van, we restored this critical corner.
We worked on drainage to reduce future erosion. We also added a berm to this high speed corner to reduce the amount of braking needed to safely navigate the trail. We learned about the uses for different types of soil and numerous trail building techniques to protect the trail for generations to come.
"The NSMBA relies on volunteers and the generous organizations that support TAP in order to pay for things like liability insurance, employees, and trail builders." says Laura.
We had a great time on the mountain while getting our hands dirty to help preserve our "backyard"! We look forward to more trail days in 2020!
Some quick facts about RBC's NSMBA TAP stats
- 3 Trail Days, 1 membership mail out night, 1 For the Girls sponsorship,
- Over 400 volunteer hours
- Over 100m of trail restored
- Almost 50 donuts consumed