Men fined for building illegal bike trail in park

It was a tough — and expensive — lesson for two Canmore men who built illegal mountain bike trails in Bow Valley Wildland Provincial Park. On Thursday, Kyle Anthony Parsloe and Cian Adam Brinker were in Canmore provincial court facing two charges each under the Provincial Parks Act after they spent a couple of months building bike trails in the wildlife corridor above the town’s Peaks of Grassi subdivision.

They both pleaded guilty in court, and were each fined $ 2,000 — one of the largest fines doled out for an activity that’s becoming a problem in the Bow Valley.

Parsloe, who’s now living in Valemount, B. C., said they didn’t realize they were building the trail in a provincial park.

“The lesson here is do your research,” he said outside court. “For kids who want to go out and build trails, it’s a really good way to spend time and the product that you get is really enjoyable, but it’s not worth this.”

He and Brinker, both 29, were caught building the trail on July 20 after conservation officers received a call from a concerned resident.

“It came in as a complaint,” said Ken Spreadbury, conservation officer with the province. “We began going out there and we found a trail, which is 800 metres in length.

“It has a number of features built to them — trees and shrubs cut, moss and ground cover chopped out and then the pits.”

They were detained and marched out of the area, he said.

“We seized all of their tools,” said Spreadbury, noting the men had been working on the trail for a couple of months.

He added that illegal trail building is a growing concern in the Bow Valley.

“It’s a huge problem,” he said. “Guys are just building trails wherever they want, they are cutting down trees, they’re putting these things in and a lot of it is in the wildlife corridor, which is very sensitive to wildlife issues.”

In addition, one of the trails Parsloe and Brinker built looks like a gully and leads directly on to Wilson Way, a street in the Peaks of Grassi subdivision in Canmore.

“If we had another event like the ( 2013) flood, that may very well flood out somebody’s basement,” said Spreadbury.

Of the $ 4,000 in penalties the men are required to pay, only $ 400 is a fine. The remaining $ 3,600 will go toward the Friends of Kananaskis for rehabilitation of the trails.

As part of the court order, Parsloe and Brinker are also expected to help with the rebuild over the next year.