My buddy was there this morning and reports all trails besides Sunset Strip and Kobra Kai are heavily boot bombed
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That echoes what I heard this morning too. Apparently still fun and worth the ride but rough on many of the more common trails.
Unfortunately heâs not wrong.
Itâs not remotely as good as it was before the latest rain/thaw, but if you got an itch to ride, itâll scratch it!
Replicator is mostly snow covered but has a decent amount of exposed rock, plus bare ground in spots. The whole trail is badly boot bombed.
Ribbon is nearly all snow covered with a few exposed roots, as well as a few icy spots, but should be OK without studs if you keep your head up. The bottom 2/3-3/4 is very boot bombed, especially the bottom, but the top section is great.
Sunset strip is soft and torn up, as well as bare ground in spots that are exposed and get the sun, the sections in the woods are very good though. The far end is hard packed and like a roller coaster.
Cobra Kai is excellent, hard packed and fast, with only a few exposed roots on the high spots.
My humps is decent, not boot bombed but not great.
6 pack is boot bombed badly, as well as Lego.
Western Flow trail is boot bombed down the hill, plus an ATV drove down it until the bridge. Yes, an ATV 
After the bridge is pretty good.
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Thanks folks, sounds like a maintenance weekend for me 
Hey gang, just saw this posted on the spider lake Facebook page. Is there new trail sabotage happening?
âMorning all! I just wanted to touch base for an update on the Spider Laker trails. It seems to be getting foolish up there again. Signs up, cameras out, trails being destroyed, and trees cut. A common name keeps getting dropped and a generic reply keeps being giving. Its pretty obvious that someone is going to get hurt there from a sabotaged trail and regardless of signage its clear thats the intent. I have seen many others and have myself done trail maintenance there. These trails are kept up by the public when it appears that Halifax Water or at least someone who represents them is actively destroying them. Can we get a clear answer on what is going on? Why are the trails being destroyed?â
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The short answer is no.
Skull Trail is closed to the public and has been since March of 2020. Halifax Water is the landowner and have every right to restrict access to the land regardless of whether it âmakes senseâ to any particular person. They are actively closing the trail by posting signs and blocking it with debris.
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What about grant road⌠there was debris there on down and out two weeks ago
Is the Sabatoge you speak of moving to other areas besides âSkullâ???
I have zero stake in the game here, just trying to clarify which area you are talking about.
Would suck to loose that place, was a mecca of fun for all last winter.
C
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Followed this issue on FB last week, and there seem to be some key points that need to be addressed.
First, is the allegations this is the work of one overzealous senior manager at Halifax Water.
This is not a case of a private landowner, restricting access arbitrarily. This is an agency of the municipal government, and should be held accountable to justify its closures in its mandate to protect the watershed.
It would be better for monitoring potentially harmful access like ATVs and fires, if there were formal, frequent access on managed trails, by MTB and hiking users.
Itâs also very disappointing that HW initially used Covid as a reason, one that is no longer scientifically relevant.
It had seemed Coun. Mancini was initially looking to a solution, and seems to have conceded on this file.
Given the lack of MTB on the Dartmouth side, this does not fit with Halifaxâs goals to promote MTB for recreational and tourism growth.
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Iâm not sure @Enduro_Performance. I was trying to clarify for myself as well. I know skull has been closed for a while. I havenât been out there in a while but it seemed like the signage was pretty clear at the entrance to skull. The original poster on Facebook just mentioned âspider lake trailsâ âtrees cutâ and âsabotaged trailâ. I was going to head there for a solo ride yesterday but decided to abort after I saw the FB post, as I wasnât sure what I would encounter on the non-closed trails.
My overall thought from @bent6543 response is that people are continuing to run or ride Skull despite signage and trail blockages and Halifax water is responding. I donât know if signs are being pulled down or the trail debris being removed?
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I rode Spider Lake (everything but Skull) 4 times over the Holidays and I did not see anything at all out of the ordinary except at the bottom of Ribbon of Love there were two âbrokenâ birch trees laid down across the trail that are easily ridden over. They look like they were placed there deliberately as there is no broken stump that I saw. Other than that it looked like business as usual
As a Dartmouth guy, the loss of this trail would hurt. It is in brutal shape as there is little or no maintenance done and you can ride all the trails in about an hour or less. However, for those after work rides when you donât want to fight traffic to get to Whopper or MRWA it works perfectly. Itâs not a challenging trail at all but is great for turning the cranks
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100% agree. Nice to be able to get a short ride in close to home.
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This is my point about making sense to any particular person. HW doesnât care about providing recreation opportunities within Watershed Protected Areas. They have a clear mandate to protect our water supply. What they deem necessary is what happens. Their justification for closing Skull is for the protection of the integrity of the watershed, period.
This isnât a decision by a wack-job employee, there is no conspiracy. There is a board who make decisions through a series of employees and managers like every other government department. It is informed by experts, scientists, studies and reports at their disposal to help inform their decisions.
If you really need to know for yourself what reasons and determinations went into closing the land to public access you can submit a request for all the documentation under the Freedom of Information Act. Access to Information | Halifax Water
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Whether itâs one exec or a board, really doesnât matter. But itâs been a persistent rumour, so I was interested if anyone was going to expand on this.
What is true, is the closure was initiated because of Covid. Made sense, in the unknown times of March 2020, but itâs not a necessity today. If they plan to keep it closed permanently, HW should say so, and should be able to advise the mayor, council and citizens.
@Aaron Firstly Itâs a waste of time chasing rumors.
Second, no offense, but unless you are a HW employee or a professional contracted by HW you have no way to know or determine what it or is not a necessity behind keeping Skull Trail or other HW Watershed Water Protected Area land closed to the public. Just so we are clear. only Skull Trail, Ribbon of Love and Inner Peace are on HW land and they have only actively closed Skull.
They have no reason to and shouldnât have to inform the public any more than they already have with the really clearly worded signs posted right at the trail entrance. Go ahead and ask any random person on the street what they think about closing Skull at Spider Lake and I bet they will have no clue what youâre talking about. You have to realize that the proportion of people who use that zone compared to the population in HRM is a tiny percentage. Why would the Mayor announce that to the public when vast majority will have no clue what he is talking about or care?
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Well, I wouldnât expect it to be an announcement from the mayorâs office, but Coun. Mancini was directly discussing it, so if he has a response it would have been good to share. Iâm not really sure why accountability from a public utility would be a bad thing? Or given other trails are on HW land, why they are singling out this loop for closure.
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@Aaron they are absolutely accountable. You are just asking in the wrong people in the wrong place.
Contact HW youself (Board of Commissioners | Halifax Water) or submit a FOIPOP (Access to Information | Halifax Water)
or contact Tony Mancini directly (Councillor Tony Mancini | Harbourview | Burnside | Dartmouth | Halifax).
Feel free to post their responses back here so all of us can understand!
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I canât speak to much about this as Itâs been awhile and Iâve forgotten, however HW does not want people in there, and that is not going to change. In lieu of that, they are âdonatingâ (I donât remember how the land is changing hands) some land for recreational use nearby, it just isnât Spider Lake. Be patient, they do care about supporting recreation, but we need to remember that it is a WATERSHED and they are very highly protected for reasons that trump recreation and subjective beliefs.
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Iâm not going to get into the weeds too deep, but here are some keypoints/answers to rumors:
- Modern watershed management theory is to support recreational, non motorized use in watershed lands as good policy (see any Sacramento state textbook, the industry standard in water treatment/management).
- it isnât novel or a new concept, and there are local examples - (Victoria Park, you ride all around their treatment plant, dam, and watershed), Wolfville has Reservoir Park. In the States, Lake Mead is the first national recreation center, and is the largest watershed in the U.S.
- Has there been any movement on giving a piece of land for recreation use? This has been going on since March 2020. Has there been a plan in place with timelines, or is it just a vague promise of future action? Donât forget, this was something Halifax Water had âvaguely committed toâ ten plus years before MRWA became a thing.
- The ecological damage to Skull trail, cutting live trees down, and âcreating a dangerous trailâ has been done by a Halifax Water employee, and is sanctioned activity.
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Also keep in mind that Halifax Water allows clearcutting in the Pockwalk watershed. In years past Iâve seen logging machinery, barrels of oils on the slope leading to Pockwalk Lake. Non motorized recreation has always been allowed there too. HW policy is not based in sound science. Example: Iâm not allowed to bond mobile power plants on fire hydrants in the city because HW thinks the fire department folks would be at risk of electrocution. It goes against electrical theory and science. Their land management policies are confusing at best, unfortunately.
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