Climate Change Resilience Project: Phase 8 – Sincere Thanks
Our Climate Change Resilience Project is substantially completed for this year. Hydro seeding and hand seeding are the last remaining touches that will take place later in August. We started this project with clear goals:
- preparing the lower mountain so it can operate on a minimum of 30 cm of snow instead of the current 80 cm, this will be achieved through infill and grading.
- addressing drainage problems to ensure the hill is better positioned to withstand major winter rain events.
The earthworks accomplished in the lower mountain and base area will have such a positive impact on the future of our operation. Not only will we be able to operate with less snow, but we will also have significantly less wear and tear on our snowcats and snow clearing equipment. The rocky, uneven, and eroded slopes were hard on equipment. The addressed drainage issues combined with the reseeding will make sure our efforts can withstand the test of time.
The CCRP is being completed just in time for the 2nd Annual MMC-Shames Mtn Blueberry Festival. The new bisect road is a family friendly blueberry picking superhighway. We invite you to join us at the mountain from 11-6 pm on August 10th. There will be Berry Picking, a BBQ by donation, a Garage Sale, and the chance to see the completed works for yourself.
For our friends that prefer Golf, please be sure to check out or support the MMC-Shames Mountain Golf Scramble series:
We are truly fortunate and excited to have such incredible partners involved in the project.
Access to the mountain is now permitted from Monday to Friday. Access to the maintenance and upper parking lot area is not allowed during the off season. This transformative project would not be possible without the help of incredible community partners. We would like to mention the community leaders who shared our vision and understood the impact and opportunity of this project. When the possibility of this project became known, we had less than a week to secure matching funding. These key people are the ones to thank for the existence of this project. Our entire ski community: the staff, the coop members, and all the skiers big and small send you all our most sincere thanks. The world needs more of these people:
Dave Gordon: City Councilmen Dave Gordon is an active skier and previous MMC-Shames Mountain board member. During his tenure on the board, countless projects were funded through his leadership of the MMC-Shames Mountain grant writing committee. After having spearheaded the original PRPA grant application, Dave is the guy who tapped the shoulders of our local contractors to put together the funding application and give birth to the project. Without Dave we would not have gotten out of the starting blocks, thanks again.
Shane Spencer and Ryan Foster: Shane and Ryan are the co-owners of Axis Mountain Technical. For years Shane and Ryan have been thinking about ways to help Shames with their specialized equipment. Their company took on the riskiest and most unpredictable part of the project. They and their professional team did not falter and were incredible through various surprises. Thank you so much, it was incredible to see what your machines can do.
Darcy McKeown: Darcy is the owner of Progressive Ventures Construction, the local General Contractor that supplied a substantial portion of the heavy equipment used on the project. Partnering with a local and engaged construction firm ensured operators with local knowledge of the ground conditions that could be expected in a mountain environment and on our project. These were skilled equipment operators who cared about their ski hill, their community and, Ryan, the hoe operator, had even worked at Shames as a Lift Operator in the early to mid-nineties. They understood the impact of their work and it showed. Thank you, PVC, for caring about your community.
Kevin Barton: Kevin is the Survey Discipline Lead at Allnorth Consulting and a long-time friend of the ski hill involved in countless previous projects. Kevin and his team at Allnorth did a ton of preliminary work on the project to allow us to get it off the ground. This included: drone survey overflights to determine original ground surfaces; quantity calculations of materials required for infill and bisect road construction; input on material sourcing methods; design drawings for grant submissions and construction use; and finally attending preconstruction meetings with contractors. We at MMC-Shames Mountain are truly fortunate to have such a skilled and professional resource for construction projects like these. Thanks Kev, you are awesome, easy to work with and without your help a project such as this would be impossible.
Rob Geier: Born and raised in the Northwest with roots in logging, Rob built Geier Waste from the ground up. Rob has always been there to help any friend in need. Since selling Geier Waste to E360 Solutions, Rob and his wife Polly have started a new venture with the goal of helping and improving our community. He provided the project with a large excavator to load material, and a smaller one he operated himself working ahead of the other equipment and doing loads of “fine” heavy construction work along with providing fantastic practical construction advice. He is smart, passionate, and innovative. If his heart were any bigger it would blow out of his chest. Thank you, Rob. You are one in a million, we are so happy you and Polly have found each other. We cannot wait to see what Rollyworks will continue to do for years to come.
Gary Maltin: Gary has been in love with Shames since his first sight in the summer of 1996. As a founding member of “Friends of Shames” society, he (and those original “Fosers”) was instrumental in saving the ski hill and paving its ownership transition from Shames Mountain Ski Corporation to My Recreational Mountain Cooperative, Canada’s first ski area that is owned and operated by a not-for-profit cooperative. Gary is a past Director of MMC, an active co-op committee member and will forever be one of the best friends of Shames.
There are so many others we could name. Thank you so much for all your efforts. This project is just the beginning. We hope to continue this improvement, moving our way up the mountain in years to come. Our end goal is for the road is to make it all the way to bottom T-bar; while restoring, regrading and repairing the main slopes and drainage issues along the way.
Climate Change Resilience Project Partners
Our partners included on this project valued at approximately $640,000 are:
RollyWorks
Maltin Consulting Services LTD
Regional District of Kitimat Stikine/
Cross Country Canada Industrial Supplies and Heavy Equipment Rentals
Your MMC-Shames Mountain Team