Building In The Snow
Can't ride? Time to Build
Words by Ryan Berrecloth. Photos by Kelsey Wright.
Date: 2009-01-06
Over the past few weeks the lower mainland of British Columbia has been hit with a few snow storms. Not since the 60’s has this area seen so much snow. Needless to say for outdoor junkies like myself, this is a wicked time of year where we can fire up the sleds, wax the skis or boards and do some shredding on the mountains. I usually split my winters between having fun in the mountains on the snow (or buried underneath it) and building new lines to ride. 2-3 feet of snow at sea level tends to put a damper on the building time. One half of me is excited to hop on a sled or hit and empty parking lot to spin some doughnuts. The other half begins to itch because it’s been a couple weeks since I put shovel to dirt, hammer to nail and chainsaw to deadfall. 
I’ve been building for 4 years. Each year I tend to find new and exciting lines and build them from scratch. For guys that undertake this task you know how much work goes into building on a rough piece of terrain. Lately I’ve started to refocus my energy to re-building deserted lines. Makes sense doesn’t it? There is a pile of lines, trails or one-off stunts that have been deserted and rarely ridden. Most of the back breaking work has been put in at one time or another and due to lack of maintenance or loss of interest the lines get ignored. To best preserve time and equally importantly not to put another ecological footprint in the mountains it makes sense to revitalize a line to make it shredtacular. A new feature here, a little dirt there and you suddenly have a new line to shred with your buddies.
Of course it’s important to be diligent and make sure the original builder still doesn’t use the line or doesn’t mind if you put some work in. So with this in mind I contacted the original builder to ensure he’s cool with some work going into the line. This particular line I have in mind has already been revitalized once. I helped Gully (Geoff Gulevich) rebuild it and add a couple stunts for one of his film segments. The step up we put in doesn’t really work so I decided to take it down and put another feature in. With this in mind, one afternoon my buddy Kelsey and I head out to the mountains to fill the building void. Some gas for the saw and a couple Vitamin P’s and we are on our way.
After a trudge through knee deep snow we reach our destination. We enjoy our first Vitamin P and make our game plan. 30 minutes later we have the stunt down and a pile of slats to use for the next feature. With our mission accomplished we exchange ideas on how we can make the line better and more fun to ride. After sharing a few ideas we make our way down the mountain looking forward to getting back to the spot to finish to conversion once the snow melts. See you on the trails…once the snow is gone.
For more pictures of building in the snow visit knollybikes.com
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