Originally Posted by kootenaycat 
Kieran, I see your point about hiring more people, but I feel you are taking the easiest way out of the liability issue by restricting access. We are feeling more and more restrictions whether it's snowmobiling or atving, or just taking a hike where once it was wilderness but now is a housing development. Is there a way to make the snowcat trails wider or on a less steeper incline? Yes it may cost a bit more, but then you would be thinking about both of our interests, not restricting ours.
BTW, what are your future plans for the tenured area? Basically, I am flat out asking if you intend to apply for exclusive use as Selkirk Wilderness has? Not that I am expecting the truth on that question, just tired of beating around the bush on this subject.
And lastly, again you failed to mention the meaning of "temporarily restricting access" as quoted from the local paper. I would really like to know what that statement means.
Thanks,
Kevin
Kevin,
Thanks for these suggestions. I have tried to answer them one by one below. We are also organising a meeting for anyone interested in this issue at 7pm on this Wednesday at the Red Shutter Inn at the base of Red. If you can make it great - if not, I would be happy to meet with you at any other time that might be covienient for you - Please do not hesitate to call me on 250 362 2271
It is not possible to widen or reduce the steepness of the incline without explosives and very large excavators something that we could not afford and something that would not be looked upon favorably by many people in the local community.
Because of the strong local support and great deal of respect that we have enjoyed we felt the approach that we have taken is the best one. Although we have a great respect for the Selkirk operation that you mentioned - we thought that a different approach was the right way to go. If we had the intention of applying for a Selkirk type closure – we simply would have made the application to do so. So the answer is no to your question. However the issue for us is safety - we can not afford to have any more accidents on our snow cat roads.
Temporarily restricting access means that during the time that we operate with the snowcats (normally from about the 20th December to the 26th March) that:
• Putting up very detailed and specific signage highlighting the danger – and urging people not to travel through these very specific parts of our snowcat roads unless they have contacted Big Red Cats first – there will be a phone number on each of these signs that can be called
• If we found people using those parts of snowcat roads - we would ask people not to use these sections of the snowcat roads that we have created - for safety reasons unless they call us first to arrange to safe travel on these sections of snowcat roads. We would explain as best we could the real safety issues and concerns that we have.
• As soon as the season is done we would remove the signs. We would also try to communicate with the local snowmobile club that we are done for the season.
• For those calling by telephone us we would indicate areas were there are not the currently the same safety issues or areas/or snow roads that we are not currently using for some reason. Or if they just wanted to pass through we could organise a safety person to radio them through safely.
• If we had a persistent safety issue with one group of people (say they were yoyo up and down these roads without regard) we would respectfully remind them of the safety issues. If they still continued to use these dangerous sections then we would then call the authorities and ask them to meet with the people at their cars/trucks. So that the authorities could also respectfully discuss the safety issues with those involved.
Kieren