Image: Supplied by City of Chilliwack / A view from the hillside of the forthcoming Vedder Mountain Park and Trail.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Vedder Mountain

City of Chilliwack to move forward with park, 4-km hiking trail on Vedder Mountain

Jul 22, 2022 | 7:23 AM

CHILLIWACK — Recreational and leisure opportunities abound in Chilliwack for families and residents, not to mention Lower Mainland visitors and tourists alike, and there’s even more on the way.

Chilliwack City Council on Tuesday (Jul. 19) accepted the lowest bid of $318,953 from Mountainco Contracting Ltd. to establish a nearly four-kilometre trail, lookout point, and day use park on Vedder Mountain Road about a kilometre away from the Vedder Bridge.

The park will be located at 44940, 45060, and 45076 Vedder Mountain Road, just west of Ideal Auto Wrecking.

The park will feature an altitude gain of 290 metres. Based on preliminary design schematics, park facilities include approximately 60 switchbacks and a minimum path width of 1.8 metres to ensure accessibility, as well as a base trailhead area, main day use area, a perch, a “rail grade” rest area, and a peak area of 300 metres at the summit. Total distance is 3,639 metres on a grade calculated at 7.8 per cent.

Image: Supplied by City of Chilliwack / A view from the hillside of the forthcoming Vedder Mountain Park and Trail.

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In late 2017, the City of Chilliwack purchased a 57.43-hectare parcel adjacent to two other city-owned parcels with the intent of building a hillside community park. This parcel will now merge with two neighbouring city-owned owned parcels of 12 hectares combined, giving the new park a total area of 69.43 hectares.

Conceptual planning for the park originated in early 2018, and a year later the city submitted the park proposal to the People of the River Referrals Office. The referral office subsequently shared the proposal with Stewardship Alliance Communities.

In 2019, the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre was asked by city staff to conduct an archaeological impact assessment for the proposed recreational site and parking lot. Due to findings from the archaeological impact assessment, the trailhead parking lot was shifted to the south and reduced in size from 65 parking stalls to 25 parking stalls.

The Chilliwack Park Society, staunch supporters of promoting and maintaining park space and expanding trails throughout Chilliwack, was elated at the latest addition to the region’s growing recreational offerings.

“This park has been a long time coming,” said Marc Greidanus, president of the Chilliwack Park Society. “This speaks to the commitment of city staff to proper planning and First Nations consultant.”

The proposed park network will link up with the nearby Vedder Rotary trail loop, extending Chilliwack’s network of trail connectivity.

“A hillside nature park that links in with the Vedder Rotary trail loop will be a tremendous new recreational and environmental asset for our community,” Greidanus added. “It’s exciting that the potential is there for this trail to provide a non-motorized link to the extensive Vedder trail network in the future. Great work by city council and staff in shepherding this project along.”

Late in 2021, the city secured the services of a qualified, registered environmental professional from Nova Pacific Environmental, which generated a report that identified a cluster of Oregon Forestsnail within the project area. The cluster was located on the trail route within 500 metres of the parking lot. To employ best practices, the trail route is now realigned closer to the city-owned quarry.

During the Jul. 19 meeting, Councillor Harv Westeringh asked Glen MacPherson, director of operations for the City of Chilliwack, why the parking lot could not remain at 65 parking stalls.

“It’s just the configuration,” MacPherson said. “That’s the only land available. We had one big chunk of land. That amount of land was found to have archaeological artifacts. We could only squeeze in 25 spaces in the remaining land.”

Mayor Ken Popove asked if artifacts would be excavated and catalogued, and if there might be an opportunity to expand the parking lot at a future date.

MacPherson responded that it would be an extremely expensive undertaking.

“We’d be talking hundreds of thousands of dollars to excavate and remove artifacts similar to ones that were found,” he clarified. “It can be done. It would probably be a long, permanent process. Like I say, very, very expensive to do.”

Popove suggested straightening out a stretch of Vedder Mountain Road and increasing parking would be a far more viable option.

“That would throw open a lot more parking on the river side of the road,” MacPherson said.

Councillor Chris Kloot thanked city staff for their role in maintaining existing hiking paths like Mount Thom.

“I was up on Mount Thom this morning,” Kloot said. “Those trails are maintained fantastic. My hat goes off to the operations crews. I’m really looking forward to another option in our community. It looks like the view over there [at Vedder Mountain] is really stellar. The city continues to increase opportunities to get outside.”