The first real winter storm of the season that rolled through the Okanagan last week devastated the Gillard trails. Since this area was toasted by a forest fire a few years back, it’s much more prone to wind damage than many other areas. Powers Creek suffered a few trees downed, but nothing like this…..
That’s the exit to Yo Mama. Luckily, the Kelowna Collective got several bodies and saws together and rallied to the rescue. Over 20 peole showed up to put in some serious effort on the part of this area.
Yo Mama probably got some of the least damage of the whole area, and this is what it looked like.
Rob has been out all week clearing the lower stuff like Boss Hog, and here he is next to the repaired jump from that last shot.
This one’s going to take a little more work. It WAS a huge stepdown move, but with a fat rootball on the lander it’s going to be springtime before this line is sendable again.
The hardest hit was Kerplop. Ryan McKenna and a crew of guys (including our buddy Jonathon, brother of our sometime guide and super helper Courtenay) went over to deal with that. What they got looked like the aftermath of Mt St Helens.
We got our lines cleared, and thanks to a huge effort on the part of many others, Kerplop, Cat’s Ass, Snakes Back, and many others were cleared up. We ran out of light, so you’ll have to wait until the next post for some riding shots.
There’s more pics of the carnage and cleanup efforts at:
