Trails Update: September 11, 2026
2006 Samurai Remix
My September calendar was filling up quickly and I pounced (somewhat unprepared) on my annual sufferfest when the weather promised to be bearable for 2 straight days of riding. The 2006 Samurai of single track really escalated things from the previous year: 2 days! Camping! Snow! While I’m deeply keen to relive the events of my (athletic) prime, I am more drawn to the trails than the parties and my body now demands access to a hot shower and pillow top mattress… so the 2026 route was going to start and finish near my house. A lot has changed on the Whistler trail map in 20 years, making this year’s nostalgia trip the hardest route to plan yet! What would Tony Horn do? On top of juggling the route to start and finish near my house, it needed to line up with the bike park lift time - to access Top Of The World. I swapped the long climb to Showh lakes with Into the Mystic; supersized Gargamel to include Zanarchy; and included all of the newer trails I could along the route. Walking my bike up the 27 switchbacks made me dream of a climbing trail upgrade in that part of town! Maybe something will appear in that area in the next 20 years…
new planner
The Long Weekend gave the crew a short week to ease us into Fall operations. It’s back to school time and September always feels like a switch for the trail crew as well. I’ve started a new planner, with fresh flagging tape and some new tools… Ted Tempany of Dream Wizards has donated 2 power pullers (Tirfors) to the WORCA trail crew. Whistler’s stumps and boulders are about to get schooled!
The days are getting shorter and hopefully, we get some more moisture to shift back into valley bottom trail repairs. We brushed back a few sections of trail in the cheakamus zone that had substantially regrown since we last cut them in June, before the back 40. Trail days are starting up again on September 13th and the Marmot Mayhem trail is ready for more shovels in the ground. We’ll also be putting more work into completing the Farout-Flashback Adaptive-MTB loop. I wanna send a shout-out to RMOW trail crew’s Bart Ross (of Into The Mystic and Bart’s Dark Trail fame) for completing the A-MTB upgrades to the lower Farside trail. We’ll be improving the connection from Bart’s work into Flashback 4 in the coming weeks. And, just like that, it seems that my October calendar is starting to fill up too… I need to get my night riding lights charged up!
See you on the Trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder
