This story, like so many in Squamish, starts with a man, his bike and a dog.
The man’s name is Rob Phoenix. The dog’s name was Tazer and the bike, well, currently it’s a Scott Spark, but there’s a stream of them that run back to the late ’80s.
Six years ago, Phoenix and his wife, Julie, moved from North Vancouver up Highway 99 to Squamish. At the time, one of the builders on Phoenix’s house was spending his free hours in the forest adding a trail to Squamish’s mountain bike system. Phoenix decided he would help him out.
“He put the bug into me,” Phoenix says.
The course is known as famous Rupert Trail, named after its founder, Gary McFarlane’s dog. Rupert Trail became a part of the popular BC Bike Race Series and, while for Squamish biking standards it might seem a breeze, visitors reported it was tough.
“Our biking level is high here,” Phoenix says.
After Phoenix’s dog, Tazer, died, he created a 300-metre ride-around along a tricky section of the trail. It comes complete with a giant doghouse that riders bike though, a feature that was created with the help of two father/son teams. Phoenix hopes other pet owners will be able to pay their respects to their late four-legged buddies at the feature.
“People can hang their dogs’ tags there,” he says.
Tazer marked the beginning of Phoenix’s trail build, which lead to a larger project that has taken more than a year to complete, 2,000 volunteer hours and 11 sponsors. The new trail – Leave of Absence – is close to Of Mice and Men trail near Alice Lake Provincial Park.
In January of last year, Phoenix applied to the B.C. Forestry Service to create a mountain bike trail that would run in the same area as Rupert Trail, but would be friendlier for beginners. In early September the application was approved.
Over the next months, the trail took on a life of it’s own, Phoenix says. The trail was adopted by the biking community and very much became a team effort.
On one weekend, approximately 40 female riders that took part in the Bell Joy Ride Women’s event came out to lend a hand to the trail’s construction. And the same time, an equal crew of local riders pitched in to make the trail a reality.
“It was just amazing to see so many people come together for this project,” Phoenix says, noting he made special crew T-shirts for the worker bees.
It still took several months of work after the big pitch to close in on the final details of the 1,600-metre trail, which is constructed to the International Mountain Bike Association and Whistler standards.
Phoenix’s right-hand man on the project, Mike Reed, gave up one of his two-week holidays to work on the trail.
Phoenix took a five-week unpaid leave of absence from his job to get a good jump on the build, which includes the five bridges. It happened to be during one of Squamish’s rainiest Octobers on the books.
“It’s got some of the best drainage of all the trails in Squamish,” Phoenix half-heartedly jokes. “We worked 44 days straight around that time.”
What surprised Phoenix the most about the whole process was how to brought people together. He sees many of the volunteers at the Squamish Off Road Cycling (SORCA) Toonie races every week, but working side-by-side in the forest you really get to know one-another, Phoenix says.
The trail should be ready by spring. The end tally shows 1,300 metres of the trail as being hand built, with only 300 metres requiring machines.
People often don’t realize the amount of time and effort that goes into making their 10-minute rides, Phoenix says. But the trail will bring back memories for Phoenix and the hundreds of other people that made it a reality.
“I can’t thank enough all the people that have come out or sponsored this project,” Phoenix says.
As for its name…. well it’s not named after another dog, he jokes. Instead it reflects just a portion of the dedication Squamish trail builders have toward the mountain bike network – Leave of Absence.
“My wife came up with it, but I think it is appropriate.”
