Garbage cleanup is a weekend morning ritual for dirt bikers like Ben Reach who want to ride above Cat Lake.
“We have cleaned up everything from camping gear that is abandoned, tires burned in tire fires, beer cans, glass, debris and nails from pallet fires and abandoned furniture,” said Reach, who is a member of the Squamish Dirt Bike Association.
The ‘pit’ area above Cat Lake is the wide-open space from where the bikers unload and leave, so cleanup is necessary, Reach said.
“We have even painted the old ski tower base at the bottom of the pit area we use to unload our bikes several times because of racist graffiti that was spraypainted on it,” he said.
The association has about 50 members, many of whom pitch in to help tidy the site, according to Reach.
Some of the garbage brought by illegal dumpers is too big for members to move, Reach said, noting a large pile of fishing net that has sat on the side of the road for months.
Reach said other debris comes from various users. Some is from campers who couldn’t get into the Cat Lake Squamish-area Ministry of Forests (MOF) campground and recreation area.
Partiers also leave a mess.
“It has always been a problem. Cat Lake is just an area where lots of young people can get to easily. It is just off the highway,” he said.
Once the garbage is collected, it is taken to the local landfill, where sometimes the fee is waived, Reach said, because it is a result of the volunteers cleaning up.
Cat Lake recreation site
In 2012 RCMP officers with help from Ministry of Forest officials cracked down on illegal activities in the campground, evicting raucous campers, according to Alistair McCrone, recreation officer with the Sea to Sky Recreation District of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
McCrone and Reach both said there have been improvements over the years in both the behaviour at the recreation site and the garbage found outside of it due to the crackdown.
So far this season, 12 campers have been evicted. Last year, six were evicted. In 2013, 125 were evicted and in 2012, 475 campers were evicted, all between mid-June and Labour Day. Clearly campers are getting the message that bad behaviour won’t be tolerated at the campground, said McCrone.
“We really are having a lot fewer problems than we used to,” he said.
Sqomish Forestry operates the campsite and has done a good job of running and keeping the site clean, McCrone said, adding that it is personally his favorite site in the district. He manages the Cat Lake campground and said there continues to be a zero tolerance for partying at the site. He said sometimes the campers who are kicked out or turned away do end up setting up in areas such as in the pit area and leaving their mess behind.
McCrone credits the Dirt Bike Association as well as the Black Tusk Snowmobile Club for cleaning up the areas outside the campground.
The key is to attract responsible campers to the area, McCrone said.
“The more people locally who hear that the site is being run a lot better and that it is a lot more family oriented, then the more families we’ll get,” he said. Cat Lake recreation site has 50 camp spots.
