A volunteer effort by a pair of Clearwater-area logging companies to rebuild a road that was washed out last year has hit a snag.
Clearwater River Road, which provided access to several major rafting and kayaking destinations in the North Thompson, was washed out July 2 last year.
The town’s Mayor, Merlin Blackwell, says after nine-months of getting all the proper permits and assembling the equipment, materials, and people – the crew was forced to stop work.
“Nearing sort of some point in the second half of the first day, they hit a rock slope that unfortunately they couldn’t see – but once they started digging into it, they realized it was incredibly unstable and it went way up the mountain and there was going to be no way to fix that,” he said, on the NL Noon Report.
“There was going to be no way to stabilize that rock slope.”
The stability issues mean that people won’t be able to raft or kayak on a portion of the Clearwater River for the second straight summer.
“Stuff around the Mahood River which is further up past this blockage and couple of the interesting sort of waterfall hikes aren’t going to be that accessible this year,” he said. “It is not an area that a lot of people go anyways, but commercially it definitely is a hit for the three rafting companies that are in town.”
“The bottom half of the Clearwater River is still fantastic. Its an area called The Kettle and on down, its still completely going to be accessible this year. Its just more for the raft companies and some of the backcountry fly fishermen.”
For now, the problem is in the hands of the province with no timeline on a solution.
“They basically had to stop, have BC Parks come back in, clean it up and walk away – and its a real shame,” Blackwell added.
“The other sad part of this is that one of the heavy proponents of this was a fellow named Dale Miller, one of the local loggers up here. He passed away last year and I think there was an effort by this group to make this a bit of a tribute to Dale. Super nice guy. So it’s a real shame. Now its in the hands of government.”
Environment Minister George Heyman says the province is looking at an alternate route to rebuild Clearwater River Road, noting any fix has to be both safe and permanent.
– With files from Victor Kaisar
