Archives for July 2018

Law Creek Fire Update

July 23, 2018 Posted by Barry

Short update from Scott regarding the Law Creek Fire currently burning near Telemark:

The evacuation alert was downgraded shortly after being issued, reducing the number of homes affected to about one third of the initial quantity – reflective of the control BCWF has on the event.

Map released today shows the fire size and boundary. Our trails (both ski and snowshoe) can be seen in green, upper left corner. Red is current fire boundary. I believe the fire is holding near 15 Ha.

The one huge ace we have is there’s a major piece of infrastructure between us, and it — the high line power supply for all of the Westside. Every effort will be made to not allow the fire to advance to that point, and at this point, that’s not likely to happen.

Fire Management Gear at Telemark

July 18, 2018 Posted by Barry

Further to the extreme fire risk, we do have some minimal equipment which you should be now be carrying if you undertake any activities at Telemark. There are Pulaskis and backpack water sprayers stored in the groomer quonset. As Scott Anderson puts it, “You’re not going to save the valley with this calibre of gear. It’s merely to meet minimum requirements when we conduct mechanical activities in the forest. If something were to flash up while say, refueling a chainsaw……clip a rock with the brush saw, whatever – the idea is to have SOMETHING to attempt to keep flames from spreading, because they grow exponentially.”

Fire Hazard Shutdown

July 18, 2018 Posted by Barry

Telemark falls within the BC Wildfire Service “West Kelowna” Danger Region. Regretfully, as of July 17, we are now in “cease all high risk activities” status. Please act accordingly.

Check here for our current Danger Class (updated daily) — scroll all the way to the bottom “West Kelowna”.

Check here to understand what activities are permitted and how to mitigate fire risk.

High risk activities are defined in the Wildfire Regulation under 
Definitions.

In the Wildfire Regulation, high risk activities mean each of the following: 
(As per Wildfire Regulation consolidated July 13, 2006)

(a) mechanical brushing; 
(b) disk trenching; 
(c) preparation or use of explosives; 
(d) using fire- or spark-producing tools, including cutting tools; 
(e) using or preparing fireworks or pyrotechnics; 
(f) grinding, including rail grinding; 
(g) mechanical land clearing; 
(h) clearing and maintaining rights of way, including grass mowing; 
(i) any of the following activities carried out in a cutblock excluding a road, landing, roadside work area or log sort area in the cutblock: 
    (i) operating a power saw; 
    (ii) mechanical tree felling, woody debris piling or tree processing, including de-limbing; 
    (iii) welding; 
    (iv) portable wood chipping, milling, processing or manufacturing; 
    (v) skidding logs or log forwarding unless it is improbable that the skidding or forwarding will result in the equipment contacting rock; 
    (vi) yarding logs using cable systems;

2018 Trail Work

July 9, 2018 Posted by Barry

Below illustration shows the trail work we are planning to start next week. Normally, we invest a little bit every year to improve trail groom-ability and to tweak trails to reduce the amount of snow cover required before we can start grooming (equals earlier opening date!). We remove large rocks, eliminate tight radius turns, widen trails, install culverts to keep spring meltwater off the trails, build up low areas which are subject to spring flooding.

This year, our focus is on making some small changes that will permit our trails to be homologated, or approved by Federation International de Ski (FIS) for major competitions. In plain language, this means that FIS has inspected the Club race trails and declared that they are “adequate to run, safe and fair.”

Homologated trails means, in summary:

They are wide enough to allow athletes to pass during a race.
They have a “standardized” profile including two long A-climbs (25 meter elevation gain, gradient 6-14%), several short steep B-climbs (10 to 30 meters with gradient 9-18%), flat recovery stretches between A and B climbs, and of course specific course lengths.
There are no hairpin turns at the bottom of a hill where athletes may go off course into trees or spectators.
Elite international athletes — World Cup tours and Olympics — who have never raced at Telemark will be confident that our trails are comparable to any of the World Cup trails they usually race on, meaning our trails will work for their training regime and they are not risking a season-ending injury due to a dangerous race course.

We are undertaking to FIS certify our race trails firstly because we committed to Cross Country Canada that we would do so as part of our successful proposal to host the Western Canadian Championships at Telemark in February 2019. But this is also a natural evolution of our growing club and being home to our growing roster of high-performing athletes who are now competing Nationally and Internationally. Club members and guests also benefit because the affected trails will be better to ski and easier to groom.

Interested in volunteering for summer work on our trails and buildings? Please drop us a note!

David Walker selected for FIS 2019 World University Games

July 9, 2018 Posted by Barry

Long time Team Telemark member David Walker will be representing Canada at the World University Games in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in March of 2019. Canadian skiers, attending full time university study, qualified for the games during the 2017-2018 season. David was 2nd overall in the distance points list.

More information on Canada’s team can be found here.