Cowichan Valley Trail - Culvert Inspection

I just finished a 21.541km cycling activity that lasted about 6hh:42mm:50ss !

Riding around for work, inspecting culverts and whatnot. Slow going, and lots of stopping and stomping through the forest.

Not entirely a cycling activity, nor a "training" activity. Just cruisin around on a mountain bike and cataloging the condition of the trail and locations and conditions of drainage culverts. The trail is very overgrown, and parts of it don't drain that well (which is crazy, because it's pretty mountainous and there's always somewhere for the water to go eventually).

It was a bit chilly, and progress was slow. The total trail length that we have to investigate is about 23km long, and it was assumed there would be around 12 culverts. We covered about 7km of it today, and found 34 culverts in that stretch. Gonna take a couple long days to find everything.

But these are some of things you have to do if you want to live in a community that has amenities and access to parks, and wishes to enjoy and experience them. You can't just throw down pavement everywhere, and slam a trail through the forest and expect nothing to change. Concious development, and maintaining a healthy balance between accessible development, and trying to change the landscape as little as possible. Maintaining drainage paths for all the little fishies, and stuff like that.

I was told initially that this trail wasn't the prettiest, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit. It connects to the greater "Trans Canada Trail" -- might be fun to go for a couple long rides and camping weekends!

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