Get outside, but keep your distance

People need to be extra cautious and extra safe and not go as far afield or in as difficult terrain as they normally might want to.

– Stephen Hui

These days, it can seem as if, apart from your own living room, nowhere is safe. From the office of the prime ministed on down, the message we are getting on a daily basis is: stay home.

It’s good advice, because the prevailing wisdom, according to the World Health Organization, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, among others, is that social distancing is one of the most effective strategies for slowing the spread of COVID-19. What exactly is social distancing? According to information posted by the BCCDC, “Social distancing is a way that we can slow the spread of COVID-19 by limiting close contact with others. Even though we are not sick, we should still keep about two meters (six feet) or the length of a queensized bed from one another when we can when outside our homes.”

For many of us, the drive to get outdoors ramps up as we move into the warmer months. According to provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, we should feel free to do so— mindfully.

“It is okay, if you are not in selfisolation—yes, you can go outside. But go only with your family members in small groups and maintain those distances,” Henry said in a press briefing on March 23. “It is important for us to keep our health and mental health going as well through this.”

In other words, get out there, but be vigilant about social distancing.

Sadly, it is abundantly clear that many people are not getting the message. On a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, the Straight hit the nature trail at Coquitlam’s Crystal Falls— and so did a lot of other people. This would not have been a big deal had everyone followed the basic principles of social distancing. Alas, a good number of hikers we encountered that day did not, blithely spreading

Not every Vancouver-area park or trail has shut down—yet—so you can still enjoy nature while observing social-distancing protocols. Photos by John Lucas themselves out across the entire width of the trail, seemingly oblivious to the close proximity of others.

For the sake of public safety, many popular trails are being shut down altogether. B.C. Parks has shut down the popular Stawamus Chief trails in Squamish, for example, and Parks Canada has announced it will restrict vehicle access to all national parks.

Stephen Hui is the author of 105 Hikes in and Around Southwestern British Columbia, and vice president of the Wanderung Outdoor Recreation Society. (He’s also a former Georgia

Straight

editorial staffer, but we won’t hold that against him.) Hui says that, if you still plan to go for a hike—if you can still find an accessible trail—combining trail etiquette and social-distancing protocols with a healthy dose of common sense is the way to go.

“For hiking there’s kind of a general etiquette when you’re passing people on the trail,” Hui told the Straight in a telephone interview. “Whoever’s going uphill has the right of way, and so if you were coming downhill, you would kind of step aside for them to go by. But now you have to be able to give them that six-foot berth, so if you’re in an area where you can’t do that—where it’s unsafe to do that because there’s a drop-off on either side or there’s a sensitive environment that you don’t want to trample—then that’s not a trail that people should be doing.”

Hui also cautions against wandering into the backcountry or taking unnecessary risks in the woods. “The search-and-rescue people seem to be worried about their capacity to be able to respond to incidents,” he says, “so I think people need to be extra cautious and extra safe and not go as far afield or in as difficult terrain as they normally might want to, because they’re just going to be putting other people at risk and stressing a system that really isn’t ready to do all that stuff.”

Those who choose to get their fresh air closer to home will find that they can still enter city parks (for now), but that their options for activities are severely limited. All playgrounds have been shut down, and the parking lots at higher-traffic parks and beaches (including Kitsilano Beach, English Bay, Queen Elizabeth Park, Stanley Park, and VanDusen Botanical Garden) are currently closed. In a bulletin on March 20, the park board issued a set of guidelines for park and beach users, asking the public to:

• Keep at least two metres (six feet) from others

• Visit parks and beaches during less busy times

• Limit the number of visits to parks and beaches to provide opportunities for others to access

• Avoid gathering in groups

• Limit high-touch recreational activities such as volleyball or frisbee

• Wash or sanitize hands after touching communal surfaces

• Stay home if you are feeling sick, especially if you are coughing or experiencing a fever

If you choose to ignore the rules, you are putting your health and that of others at risk, and Hui says you should brace yourself for a trial by social media. “I think that if people go out in groups and flout the health officials’ recommendations and orders, they’re going to face some major public shaming when they post their photos on Instagram,” he says. “So in some ways that is helping to regulate this a bit. People need to be responsible and think about other people.” MARCH 26 – APRIL 2 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT