Running through the damage of a fierce wind storm

A powerful wind storm took down more than 2,000 trees in the West Bragg Creek area at the end of November. You hear about these weather stories on the news but you can’t really comprehend them until you see the damage first hand and not on a screen.

This past Saturday I ventured out with Rachel to run a 20K loop starting from Allen Bill Pond. It’s a loop that I have done so many times that I could do it with my eyes closed. Directly after the wind storm, the West Bragg Creek Association asked people to stay away as they (along with Alberta Parks) cleared the trails of debris and tree fall. Regular updates are posted on their website.

Last weekend I ran from Station Flats thinking I would avoid most of the tree fall and debris. Not so much as there was some down trees littering sections of my route but not enough for me to abandon my running plans. I turned around because of the deep snow.

So this Sunday, Rachel and I met at the usual spot to run the route. Enough time had passed since the wind storm so we thought the trails would be fine. It was easy going for the first bit until around 5K when we started to see more and more down trees scattered along the trail.

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At first it was quite fun climbing over and crawling under the tree fall. We had a good laugh But when we started to really survey the damage of the forest we were devastated. Some of these grand trees had been standing for years and years. Hundreds maybe. Such beauty lost. I also wonder about any animals that might be now homeless or displaced.

For most of the way, we followed the well-used trail and foot steps in the snow. We ran into a couple of runners who I always seem to see on this trail. We chatted for a few minutes about running, the trees and the damage. We were feeling pretty good about finishing the loop even though we were moving quite slower than usual.

At one section, we started to break trail in deep snow. We could tell no one had been there for a while. We saw yellow ribbons on the trees so we knew the volunteers had been there clearing the debris. I was confident enough to lead us through but around the 7.5K mark on Boundary Ridge we came to a dead end. It was like we were in a tree graveyard. Everywhere we looked, there were down trees.

At this point we thought what the heck are we doing? We couldn’t see a clear route through the chaos so we thought let’s just turn around, and throw on some kilometres at the end of our run/hike.

And that’s what we did.

We slowly retraced our steps to our starting point where we came across a few hikers. Then we ran/hiked the Fullerton Loop. Despite the tree carnage, it was a great day to be alive and in the mountains with friends. I must commend all the hard work the volunteers and Alberta Parks staff are doing to clean up this mess and keep the trails safe and accessible.