New developments from the Nelson Cycling Club could have the Morning Mountain area become a designated cycling destination in the future.
“We’re trying to come together with a vision for Morning Mountain that would reflect the approval that the club has up there to develop multi-use trails,” said Mark Crowe, one of the directors of the Nelson Cycling Club.
The area is already home to a network of trails, but the club hopes to further develop the area as part of the Nelson trail infrastructure.
Some of the work that the club hopes to do includes maintaining existing trails, a task that is undertaken every year, improving signage, parking and other associated amenities.
The club recently held a meeting for those interested to generate ideas for the area.
“There was a bundle of great ideas,” said Mark Holt of Sacred Ride and a long-time trail builder.
“Everything from developing a camp site up there, washrooms, signage and trail improvements, new trails, creating more intermediate trails, cross country loops and potentially a machine built trail.”
There may be many ideas for the future development of the area, but the club is still a long way from implementing them.
“We’re still in an early phase of getting ideas and laying them on a map so we can apply for further funding, which is available from the RDCK,” said Holt.
“We’ve received support from the district recreation officer to put together a plan on how we can best utilize that area,” said Crowe.
“That’s the process we’re working on now… by early spring we’ll have a draft of what that will look like.”
Holt said that the Morning Mountain area has Section 57 approval under the forest and range act, which designates it as a mountain bike area. This differs from areas such as Mountain Station in which cyclists would have to venture into private land.
“It just ads to the Nelson riding scene,” said Holt, adding that the future development of the area would allow more cyclists to access the trails without the use of motor vehicles.
“It would bring more people in because that is a growing part of the industry, the all-mountain and cross-country riders, this could make it better for cross-country and downhill riders alike.”