Wildfire risk leads to closure of popular local hiking trail and beach area
Sad news, hikers. As a result of the ongoing wildfire risk in the province, a popular hiking spot near Vancouver has been forced to close.
The Village of Lions Bay, which is north of West Vancouver along the Sea to Sky Highway, announced on Thursday that it has made the difficult decision to close visitor parking and access to trails in and around the community.
That includes access to the Tunnel Bluffs viewpoint.
“Due to unprecedented hiker pressure in our backcountry areas, we must unfortunately take this temporary measure to reduce the risk of a human-caused wildfire. Unlike other communities such as Kelowna and Yellowknife where fires started kilometres away, a fire on trails could be only hundreds of metres away from homes,” a release from the community reads in part.
Additionally, the area, which is south of Squamish, is further impacted by the water shortage and unlike other Metro Vancouver communities relies only upon its watershed above the village.
“A fire in this area would contaminate the water supply with disastrous consequences for our small community,” it added.
“This decision was not taken lightly and we look forward to welcoming hikers back when conditions are safe for everybody after we get some much-needed rain,” Acting Mayor of Lions Bay Jaime Cunliffe said.
“We wanted to get the message out so that hikers don’t drive all the way here only to find they can’t go hiking.”