Trails BC is pleased to announce that the Cranbrook Great Trail Loop will be holding an opening ceremony on Thursday, May 23 at 7 p.m. at the Isadore Canyon Trailhead.

The Cranbrook Great Trail Loop is a 16-km loop trail through the City of Cranbrook and the Cranbrook Community Forest (CCF) that is half urban pathway and half forested trail.

Utilizing Cranbrook’s Rotary Way and trails within the CCF, only a limited amount of new trail construction was required.
This new trail designation integrates the Cranbrook Community Forest, City of Cranbrook Idlewild Park, downtown Cranbrook, city and private campgrounds, newly established Chief Isadore Trail as well as links to the popular NorthStar Rails-to-Trails and the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Centre.

There will be a ribbon cutting for a new three kilometres long and 1.3-metre width trail segment that is part of the loop. Pilisit Trail is named after the wife of ancestral Chief Isadore of the Ktunaxa. The name was chosen by the Ktunaxa elders.

This new trail connects the Isadore Canyon Trailhead (and the Chief Isadore Trail) to trails at Kettle Lake in the Cranbrook Community Forest (CCF). This new trail has grades of five per cent or less which will make the trail more accessible for seniors and families.

This new trail section combined with a new trail connector between 9th Street and Mt. Baker Road of 700 metres along the Fortis gas pipeline right-of-way, now ties Idlewild Park to the CCF through to the Isadore Canyon Trailhead.

The result of the Loop project was construction and/or rehabilitation of six kms of trail.

Trails BC was the project proponent and we are happy to collaborate on this initiative with our partners Wildhorse Cycling Club, Cranbrook Community Forest Society and the City of Cranbrook.

Recreation Sites and Trails BC (RSTBC), as land managers, was the agency that was key in helping facilitate the project thorough the CCF. The $70,000+ project was funded from the Columbia Basin Trust, the Trans Canada Trail Foundation as well as RSTBC, Trails BC, private donors and BC Hydro. We appreciate the City of Cranbrook providing some needed in-kind trucking support.

Trail signage to highlight the new loop trail will be installed over the next couple of months.

The Cranbrook Great Trail Loop is now officially part of The Great Trail. The Great Trail was formerly known as the Trans Canada Trail, is a cross-Canada network of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic oceans. The trail extends over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 miles); it is now the longest recreational, multi-use trail network in the world.

Trails BC

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