The trails at Rockwood Park are currently wet and sensitive to mountain bike traffic.
However, to help maintain and develop trails, Saint John Cycling — a non-profit organization promoting and supporting cycling in Saint John — uses volunteer Trail Miners.
The volunteer program is a partnership with the City of Saint John, which provides financial support and is dedicated to sustainable practices.
“There’s a formal form that we would fill out for major projects we want to work on, but we have a little more free-range as far as general maintenance,” said Patrick Graves, lead trail miner and public relations liaison for Saint John Cycling.
Volunteers do various work on the trails, such as trimming branches, mitigating erosion issues, cleaning up deadfall, rerouting trails into more sustainable regions, and cleaning up sightlines.
“What we mean by sightlines is when the brush gets overgrown, it’s hard to see down the trail, so if it’s a multi-use trail, and hikers or bikers are coming one way or another it’s good to have a nice sightline so you can see people coming and going,” mentioned Graves.
Saint John Cycling also has the ‘Adopt a Trail’ program, which allows volunteers to maintain a group of trails of their choice.
“This ensures the trail itself is visited every few weeks to remove any fallen branches, pick up litter, report hazards such as major erosion, or windblown trees, missing signage, and damages to bridges, and benches, and so this program allows the Trail Miners to increase the scope of maintenance in Rockwood Park,” said lead trail miner, Emily Lennon.
On Tuesday, April 5, at 6:30 p.m. the Saint John Cycling Trail Miners will hold a meeting at the Rockwood Park Interpretation Centre.
Lennon and Graves both encouraged those interested in becoming Trail Miners or joining the ‘Adopt a Trail’ program to take part in the meeting.
“If you’re unable to attend that meeting then please reach out to us through the Saint John Cycling web page, Facebook, or Instagram,” added Lennon.
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