Oh, what I do for love! Many years ago, shortly after getting married, Jim took me on a hike up a trail near Whistler called the Mount Brew trail.
Most of it went straight up the very steep mountainside with very few switchbacks. I hated it. When we eventually came out ‘in the open’ i.e. the subalpine, I was horrified to see we had not reached the top, but rather a broad, flat hanging valley in front of yet another steep slope beyond (kind of like Silverking Basin).
Assuming I was expected to climb the distant slope, I went on strike, sat down on a boulder and refused to carry on. Jim took off across the meadows and heathlands while I figured out how I could get hold of someone to officiate a divorce there and then!
After a while, I heard him shouting and saw he was waving his arm about, but since I could only see part of him from the waist up, I thought he must be hurt. So, I raced across the “flat” basin over treacherous hummocks and dips to find him all excited (‘at fever pitch’) because he had found a rare aquatic lichen called the waterfan (Hydrothyria venosa)!
The waterfan lichen needs cool, clear and partly-shaded, low-gradient streams in alpine/subalpine meadows in B.C. Siltation, especially from trail crossings and trail building will smother and destroy it.
The lichen, also known as Peltigera gowardii, is listed as a Species of Concern by COSEWIC under the Canadian Species at Risk Act because it is rare, sensitive to disturbance and siltation and it is unclear how it will react to climate warming.
The lichen is also red-listed by B.C.’s Conservation Data Centre. This same rare lichen is present in at least three streams draining off the “Prairie” on Hudson Bay Mountain in Smithers.
A new mountain bike trail has already been approved to pass through the Ski Smithers tenure area which includes part of the “Prairie.”
There is also a plan to get approval to extend this trail as far as Crater Lake and possibly circle back to the cabin area of the ski hill.
Building and using this trail could have deleterious impacts on the rare lichen. According to the LRMP Recreation Access Management Plan (RAMP) Agreement – a legal document produced in 2006 – the “Prairie” and Crater Lake are designated as foot traffic only.
Building a bike trail goes against this legal document and potentially the Federal Species at Risk Act.
