Oldman Watershed Council (OWC): Flowers on the edge

(Editor's note: One of the main things that the OWC endeavours to facilitate is the cooperative use and stewardship of the watershed by the wide spectrum of users and interests. It is wonderful that urban and rural recreationalists alike are getting out into nature and enjoying it. We must all support commitment to the use of designated trails so that our wild spaces can remain so and the quiet enjoyment of them remains a pleasure for generations to come.)

Flowers on the edge

Last Wednesday (July 9, 2014), I hiked up the avalanche chutes of Tecumseh Mountain—it's in the extreme western headwaters of the Crowsnest River— to see what Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) might have done to protect what may be Alberta's greatest concentration of a rare orchid, the mountain lady's slipper. (I reported the orchids to ESRD in 2006, while also reporting that dirt bikers, creating a deep trench up the eastern ramparts of the mountain, were high-marking within the population of the rare orchid and other extremely rare-in-Alberta plants. I've also generated additional action requests to ESRD.)

When I visited the site this year—it was my first visit since 2012—I found the resultant landscape abuses were far worse than I could ever have imagined. The dirt bikers, since my last visit, have excavated a much deeper and wider trench up the face of the mountain, and there are now braided trail segments to supplement this abuse.

Within the footprint of the rare orchids, dirt bikers have created a slalom course of sorts, and multiple trails now extend upward, through the orchids, and through a subalpine fir, limber pine and whitebark pine forest, extending into the alpine meadows near the crest of the mountain. This network of guerrilla trails now extends from valley floor to the virtual summit of the mountain.

The cost of restoration: probably more than one-million dollars.

What has ERSD done to address my 2006 concern: Nothing that I'm aware of. Regardless, the resultant outcomes speak volumes.

I counted more than 500 blooming mountain lady's slippers this year (July 9th) as I hiked through the area. The orchids are still there. This noted, others have been excavated by dirt bikers and/or ATV users. As I hiked, on a Wednesday, the screaming engines of dirt bikes and, to a lesser extent, ATVs, was my regular companion. The so-called trails that exist below me have, within the past decade, turned into virtual mud and dust highways. You could drive a truck down most of them, and many people obviously have.

Pictured from my July 9th hike are: