First ride: Jasper’s recovery after the fires

It was a devestating summer for Alberta’s beautiful national park; one-third of Jasper’s structures were destroyed by a massive fire. Local mountain bike legend Cory Wallace takes us on his first ride after the smoke cleared.

Back on the bike after the fires

“I was back in Jasper at the end of August, and some of the Bench trails above town were open for riding. That area wasn’t touched by the fire, but we did come across these massive bulldozed firelines in the bush that they’d put in as fire breaks. It was a bit eerie. The only road ride available at the time was the 6 km stretch up Pyramid Lake Road and the busy Highway 16. The scenic south highway, which had been through the heart of the burn, was cleared of danger trees and open to motorbikes and traffic, but they were keeping cyclists off it for some reason. After a close call riding on Highway 16, a few of us wrote letters asking them to open the south highway to cyclists so we’d have a safer route to ride. Two days later, they opened it.”

Riding through the burn

“Riding up on the Bench trails felt like business as usual, but the south highway—man, that was something else. The fire had burned nearly every tree and all the ground cover, leaving these wide-open views that we’d never seen before. Each day we rode through, we discovered new parts of the countryside that had been hidden for years. Once hikers are allowed back in, those wide-open ridge walks are going to be pretty amazing to explore.”

The future

“The trails in the burn areas are going to be incredible once they open. The views will be unreal, and watching the landscape regenerate will be exciting. I’d estimate that about half of the local riding trails were in the burn, so there’s going to be a real mix of the old trails we’ve known and the new terrain shaped by the fire. It’s going to be a completely different experience than anything we’ve had before in Jasper.”

Before the fire

“Before the burn, trails like Signal Mountain Fire Road and the Valley of the Five were enclosed by thick, overgrown forests. There wasn’t much to see. But now, after the fire, everything is wide open. People in town will be able to look up and see riders climbing Signal Mountain—it’s a totally different view.”

Jasper will bounce back

“Jasper is a resilient community, and it’ll recover. It’s going to take time, though, especially with all the different layers of management—Parks, municipal, federal,…