Changes to Biking in the South Chilcotins

If you know even a little bit about the history of the Parks Service in the US, it's probably come to your attention that the parks have been a battle ground of opinions and varying interests since day one. They still continue to be this way, and here in BC we have another example of how tricky it can be to try and please everyone.

Changes coming to the South Chilcotin park areas have sparked up a lot of debate here in Whistler, as we have fairly easy access to this area, and it serves up some pretty epic biking. Proposed changes to the park management plan regarding biking include:

- Encouraging less fly in/ride out mountain biking (think Spruce Lake here)

- XC mountain biking rather than downhill biking would be the principal type of riding in the park

- No development of technical trail features

- No off trail biking

There are some other things that relate to biking, so please give the Proposal a read before you voice your opinion to the Parks Service. You can find the document here.

The rumor that has been floating around is that biking will be banned altogether from the South Chilcotins, however it does not sound like this is the case from the document. If you're one of the heli drop DH folks this will definitely affect your ability to ride here.

After you've had a read through, head to this page to voice your opinion to the government. You have a few more days – they are accepting public input until May 30 2014.