Hike Committee Meeting (ZOOM Web Meeting)

Hike leaders and any members who are interested in hike schedule or trail maintenance planning are getting together for a ZOOM meeting to develop the 2024 Spring-Summer (early May to early November) weekly hike schedule and associated train maintenance schedule.

Already Scheduled

For April 2024 to March 2025 there will be ~40 hikes. The focus of the Hike Committee Meeting being mid-April to the end of October and the coordination of trail maintenance. That puts us at 27 hikes and we have already tentatively filled 15 so 12 still needed:

• April 21st – South Saunders Lake – A33 to A30 (JoAnne B. & Lee S.)
• April 28th – Battle River – Duhamel Campground to RB Hill (Mary M.)
• May 5th – Ministik – A87 to Horseshoe Lake (Helen W.)
• May 12th – Kopp Lake (John S.)
• May 19th – Pipestone Creek – A49 to A51+ (JoAnne B. & Lee S.)
• May 26th (Tentative) – North Miquelon A85 (Miquelon Park) to St. FX Lookout & Members Social (Anita P, JoAnne B & Lee S)
• June 2nd – Pipestone Creek – A53 to A51 (John S.)
• July 14th – Stoney Creek (Elizabeth B.)
• July 21st – Fort Ethier (John S.)
• July 28th – Stoney Creek/Happy Valley (Irene M.)
• September 1st (Tentative) – Battle River (Duhamel Campground to Fidler’s Monument) (Elizabeth B.)
• September 8th – Ministik Berg/Nature Conservancy Trails (Delaney S.)
• September 15th – Miquelon Provincial Park (Irene M.)
• October 20th – Battle River – Duhamel Campground to RB Hill (Mary M.)
• October 27th (Tentative) – Wanison Stopover & Members Social (Anita P, JoAnne B & Lee S)

Note:

• ‘Tentative’ means just confirming the date
• no hike Thanksgiving weekend
• biweekly winter hikes for November to April 2025 do not require maintenance to can be addressed later in the season
• Trail Maintenance is expected to start about May 29th
  • maintenance for the April 21st to June 2nd hikes was done in the fall of 2023
  • ideally many of the August to October hikes will be able to go again in the spring of 2025 without maintenance
• Hikes that have not been done recently that we should consider –
  • Northland Coal Lake to Mud Lake – 2 hikes (~1.1km overlap from A39 to ‘B’)
    • Coal Lake Boat Launch (A40) to ‘B’ past A39 – includes “Source of the Blackmud”
    • Cloverlawn (A39) to Mud Lake (past A38) – includes “Stan’s Bench”
  • Battle River Schnee Hill – 2 hikes
    • A60 to Schnee Hill – should to be later in the season as trail crosses a field that typically gets harvested in mid-September
    • A57 to Schnee Hill
  • Hastings Lake – 2 hikes
    • East Hastings (A91) to Mottet Hill
    • North Hastings (A97) to St Margarets Church – includes the “Allen Nature Walk”
  • Partridge Hill/Ross Creek (A111 to A109)

Hike Planning

To help with our planning we will use a file of past hikes. Choose one of these versions depending on which spreadsheet software you use (these are the files from the March 2023 Hike Committee Meeting, they will be updated prior to the March 2024 meeting):

• Hike_Planning_2024.xlsx (Microsoft Excel)
• Apple Numbers (Macintosh, iPhone, iPad)
• OpenDocument Spreadsheet (Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice)

Alternatively, you can download the PDFs of the spreadsheet’s 2 tabs:

The file has two tabs of the hike information:

By Week

This is the list of hikes, by Guide Book page number. The columns on the right of “2023” show what the hike was in previous years.

By Hike

This is the list of hikes, a by Guide Book page number. The columns on the right show when the hike was previously held and the name of the hike leader. Some hikes have been done with variations and these are noted.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments about the hike schedule, let Lee know at hikes@waskahegantrail.ca