A critique of the Joffre Lakes Visitor Use Management Strategy
On March 5th, 2021, BC Parks released their Draft Visitor Use Management Strategy for public comment.
The summary of my feedback is as follows:
1) This strategy is a long way from completion. If published in its current form, it would not provide actionable guidance to rangers or clarity to the public about how to set and adjust policies on an ongoing basis. There is very heavy reliance on words such as “explore,” “examine,” “determine,” and “consider”.
2) Implementing the proposed day-pass system at Joffre Lakes (the most robust trail in the region and one of the very few with outhouses) will result in the destruction of other routes in the region that do not receive any funding for maintenance. We can not afford to take a siloed one-off approach to visitor management.
3) The plan downplays the importance of winter recreation (no camping during the winter and only partial plowing of the parking lot.) It also ignores the unique needs of mountaineers who may need to make trip planning decisions on short notice to take advantage of weather windows.
My detailed feedback on the draft strategy:
1) I will start with something positive. I’m very happy to see BC Parks forming a meaningful partnership with the Lil’wat Nation and N’Quatqua First Nations. The existing Master Plan (developed in 1989) completely ignored the significance of the area to these First Nations.
2) The existing original Master Plan has been pulled offline. It’s hard to provide comments on the proposed Visitor Use Management Strategy without being able to reference the Master Plan. That document was available on the BC Parks website as a PDF until recently and it should be restored as soon as possible. In the meantime, it can be found in an online archive here: http://web.archive.org/web/20190223042050/http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/joffre_lks/joffre-mp.pdf?v=1550895621315
3) 30 days is not an adequate consultation period. Stakeholder groups are made up of volunteers that meet once every month or two months and BC Parks is well aware of this. BC Parks met with a number of stakeholder groups on March 2nd, 2020. I participated in that meeting as a representative of Leave No Trace Canada (I am no longer representing Leave No Trace Canada and all views in this post are solely my own.) BC Parks staff were given a full year to prepare this document after those consultations and volunteer groups should now be given more than 30 days to respond.
4) This strategy document fails to acknowledge the role that BC Parks played in creating the current situation and I don’t think it’s fair to blame the problem on the Olympics. BC Parks made a decision to improve the Joffre Lake trail in the early 2010s. The two pictures below show typical conditions on the trail before the significant upgrades. We can’t have an honest discussion about how to manage visitor levels at the park without acknowledging that visitor levels are directly correlated to trail accessibility and that the increase in visitation is largely a result of recent management decisions. There is a very high level of demand for well-built trails and we should be embracing that.
5) Re “3.1.2 Fish and Wildlife” and “3.1.3. Biogeoclimatic Zones”:
I am disappointed at the lack of detail or data in these sections considering the weight that they are given in making management decisions.
6) Re “Management Objective 4.2.4 Maintain the campsite closures during the winter, due to extreme avalanche risk.”:
There are locations within the park where winter camping can safely occur. Banning this activity is inconsistent with the objectives of the park. Note that the Master Plan did call for a campsite at the north end of the upper lake which has not yet been developed.
7) Re: “Improve traffic flow in the parking lots”:
There is no mention of the need to bring the new parking lot on the north side of the highway into the boundary of the Provincial Park.
8) Re “Management Objective 5.1.1 Continue to plow snow to maintain some winter season parking”:
The key word here is “some.” In previous years, almost half of the main parking lot was plowed. Last year (prior to the pandemic) that had shrunk to a tiny area in the secondary parking lot across the highway which was completely inadequate. Joffre Lakes Provincial Park is a popular winter destination and the entire parking lot should be plowed for the entire winter season. Winter recreation is consistent with the objectives of the park.
9) Re “Management Objective 5.2.1 Consider development and/or redesign of facilities and trails to support sustainable recreation, mitigate impacts of visitor use and/or disperse visitor use”:
This is a complete non-commitment. A suggestion that BC Parks might “consider” doing something is not enough. The strategy needs to use concrete language that BC Parks can be held accountable to such as “Develop the required facilities, including outhouse/washroom facilities, and trails to ensure that recreation activities are carried out in a sustainable way.”
10) Re “Management Objective 6.2.1 Establish a visitor capacity for the park. Monitor and assess the visitor capacity over time and adjust as necessary to protect park values including visitor experience”:
Visitor capacity is the crux of the entire Visitor Use Management Strategy and this document needs to include details about how the visitor capacity will be calculated. Stakeholder groups have been very critical at the arbitrary approach that BC Parks has used to determine visitor capacity elsewhere. In a supplemental document, BC Parks explains that visitor capacity will be set at 1500 between May and September but they don’t adequately explain the methodology. This information should be a part of the strategy document which is the formal document that will be published.
11) Re “Management Objective 6.2.2 Explore allotment of a portion of any approved day-use permits for commercial use”:
It is not useful to say that BC Parks will be “exploring” a possibility of doing something. This strategy document needs to clearly state whether a portion of passes will be reserved for commercial use or not. That is a strategic decision that can then be used to make tactical policy decisions (e.g. specific allocations) on an ongoing basis.
Along a similar line to commercial use permits, I do think that there should be an allotment of permits for formal mountaineering clubs. Mountaineering clubs provide important mentorship and training opportunities and should be provided with a reasonable way to organize group trips long in advance for those purposes.
12) Re “Management Objective 6.2.3 Examine the implementation of a day-use permit system to manage visitors within park capacity”:
Are day-use permits the proposed strategy or is the proposed strategy to examine possibility of having day-use permits? These strategy documents guide decisions for many years so clarity is important. Will the approval of this document give BC Parks the green light to implement day-use permits or to start a study and additional consultation to examine the implementation of day-use permits? In an e-mail from BC Parks, I have been told they are proposing to proceed with a free day-use pass system. I feel strongly that implementing day-use passes in specific locations without a regional trail development plan is a bad idea. We can look at the serious consequences of the day-use pass system that was put in place during 2020. When people can’t access Joffre Lakes, two locations they visit instead are Rohr Lake and Semaphore Lakes. These routes have no funding and no outhouses and they suffered a great deal of damage. The picture below shows how the Rohr Lake route turned into a mud bath under heavy visitation when Joffre Lakes was closed. If Joffre Lakes Provincial Park moves to a day-use permit system, these other areas will be destroyed within a handful of years and rehabilitation may take a decade or more (if funding is ever provided to properly route and upgrade the trails.)
13) Day-use passes create challenges for mountaineers and ski-mountaineers who need to travel during optimal weather and avalanche conditions and often make day-of or night-before go/no-go travel decisions. Seeing as these users veer off the main trail, they do not conflict with visitors in the intensive recreation zone and the strategy document should clearly state that the needs of these users will be met. These uses of the park were emphasized in the original Master Plan and this feedback has been consistently provided throughout the development of this strategy. It is disappointing that there is still no mention of how the unique needs of these user groups will be met.
14) Re “Management Objective 9.1.1. Allocate funding to support costs associated with enhanced visitor management, park maintenance, park facilities, and associated staffing at Joffre Lakes Park.”
Because the plan calls for day-use permits to be free, it is unclear where funding will come from to support the staffing and systems required to manage a cost intensive day-use permit system. I would argue that instead of allocating funding from within the parks budget to cover these new costs, we may be able to eliminate the overcrowding problem at Joffre Lakes by building additional trails elsewhere in the BC Parks and BC Rec Sites and Trails system. BC has no shortage of beautiful mountain lakes. We only have a shortage of well built and well maintained trails with appropriate trailhead facilities. I am strongly opposed to robbing other parks of their already limited funding to increase the operational funding at Joffre Lakes Provincial Park (while at the same time serving fewer visitors/year due to visitation caps.)
However you feel about the proposed strategy, please take a few minutes to fill out the BC Parks survey here before April 4th, 2021: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HVGCX3C
Happy Hiking,
Steve
stevejoneshikes@gmail.com
