|
Buying trail passes helps local
trails, says new manager
Beacon Star, News,
by Evan
French Friday,
July 24, 2009

Park-to-Park
manager Adam Ryeland attaches signs to a
trailer that will man the trails this
summer, reminding users to buy a pass
that supports the association and its
efforts to maintain more than 230
kilometres of trail.
Adam Ryeland
wants you to buy a trail pass locally if
you plan to ride ATVs or bicycles on the
local trail network this year.
The Park to
Park Trail Association’s new manager,
who has been on the job for about eight
weeks, said a new initiative is underway
to remind people money earned from the
sale of passes goes right back into the
maintenance of the system, especially
when they’re purchased at local stores.
“We try and
encourage people to go into the stores
to buy them,” said Ryeland. “Then they
kind of get an idea of how many people
are really involved in this project. And
at the same time it brings business into
these stores and gives them some
notoriety as well.”
Ryeland may
be new as manager, but he has spent the
last two years as a board member for the
trail association.
The camping
enthusiast, who has worked for
Bear Claw
Tours, and Wheelz, in Parry Sound, said
he wasn’t coming in out of the cold when
he took the manager’s job.
“When this
job came up I thought it was a perfect
fit for me,” he said. “I did have a
little bit of background information
coming in.”
And Ryeland
said he wants to pass some of that
information on to riders.
There are two
passes which grant you access to the
local trail network.
The
Park-to-Park trail pass, which can
be purchased at 19 stores around town,
gives the buyer access to Park-to-Park’s
network, and all proceeds from sales go
toward maintaining the local trail.
Ryeland said
for those more inclined to travel, the
PowerPass,
an ATVOntario pass, might make more
sense, since it gets you onto trails in
Cochrane, Elliott Lake, Mattawa and
Haliburton, as well as Parry Sound.
“If you’re
someone that likes to travel, and go to
the different parts of the province to
ride, the
PowerPass might be your best bet,”
he said. “But if you’re a local person
and you don’t ever go riding outside of
this area, it’s probably better to buy a
Park-to-Park pass because then you
know 100 per cent of that money is going
into the local trail.”
He said a
percentage of money earned from
PowerPass
sales does work its way back to the
local trail, but nowhere near 100 per
cent.
Park-to-Park
president Steve Alcock said part of the
campaign to get folks buying trail
passes includes a recently acquired
20-foot trailer, which will sit at the
start of the trail, near the
Georgian
Bay Country visitors centre, as an extra
reminder for riders.
“We’ve
established a trail head trailer to sort
of be an ambassador out there to remind
people that it’s the riders that pay the
freight to keep these trails working,”
he said.
“We’re hoping
there’s going to be quite a bit of
activity on the trail as we upgrade
culverts and surfacing.”
Alcock said
the association applied for an
infrastructure grant to carry out those
upgrades, and they’ll know the verdict
by the end of the month. It’s exciting
times for the trail group, he said,
since recently Seguin Township received
more than $100,000 in federal and
provincial grant money to resurface the
Rose Point Trail, which runs close to
Parry Sound and connects to the town’s
fitness trail to the Park-to-Park trail.
“When you
talk about the materials that are there
now, some of them have been there for a
100 years or more,” said Alcock.
He said the
Rose Point Trail has long been a focal
point for the Park-to-Park group,
because once it’s upgraded, Parry
Sounders will gain better access to the
entire trail network.
“It’ll give
us this great loop system,” said Alcock,
who lives in the Huntsville area.
“If I was a
Parry Sound resident, I’d be quite
excited about it.”
Ryeland said
while they don’t want to bully people
into buying trail passes, the Ministry
of Natural Resources has told the group
they have the authority to insist. He
said riders on the trail who don’t have
passes could face trespassing charges. |