Program Information

The IMBA Canada Trail Care Crew provides free trail building education services to IMBA Canada affiliate clubs, Parks Canada sites, and Trans Canada Trail local, provincial, and terrotorial groups. Eligible groups can apply online to host a visit, September through November each year.

The two person team of professional trail builders travels around the country 10 months of the year, stopping to meet with trail groups and land managers each weekend.

Typical visits run from Thursday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and include an IMBA Trail Building School, a trail project assessment, and a group ride or hike. If there is enough interest, we can also book a social evening, Club Care Workshop, or other events. Land managers may consider scheduling visits mid-week.

IMBA Trail Building School

Each crew visit is anchored around IMBA’s highly-respected, one-day Trail Building School, during which the crew teaches sustainable trail construction and maintenance practices via a classroom session and hands-on trail work. For most visits, Trail Building Schools are open to the public, and take place on Saturday from 9AM - 4PM. The maximum number of participants we can accommodate is 45.

Topics covered include:

• Sustainable trail design
• Basic construction
• Turns, drainage and bridges
• Trail reroutes
• Trail reclamation
• Armouring
• Managing users
• Effective use of signage
• Fostering volunteer clubs and partnerships

Trail Project Assessment

In order to lead an effective build session, the Crew needs to have time to prepare the project in advance. Depending on the scope, assessments may take 3-4 hours or more. It is helpful to have you and/or the local land manager available. This should not, however, be a public event.

Club Care Workshop

Is club membership stagnating? Are your best advocates feeling burned out? A key element of building sustainable trails is ensuring that there will be a community committed to the trails’ existence. During a Club Care Workshop, the Crew will share techniques to overcome these common challenges, and grow the trail user community.

Meetings or Presentations

In addition to trail building, there may be time to address local issues during your visit.

This can include meetings with land managers, trail assessments to provide advice on maintenance or specific routing issues, or presentations to promote strails to local community leaders.

Social Evening

This can be a gathering at a pub, bike shop, small theater, even backyard; be creative! It is an opportunity for a fun, social event to promote trails in your community, the trail build- ing weekend, your organization, and IMBA!

Visit Schedule Example

THURSDAY

• Casual meeting or lunch with the crew and hosts
• Ride or hike with the crew so they can get a feel for the area/ trails

FRIDAY

• Five hours to a full day to assess proposed trail project site and flag it. Please no more than two or three people in addition to the crew
• Meet with land managers, city officials, trail users, etc. for presentations and/or informal discussion (optional)
• Social event (optional)

SATURDAY: IMBA TRAIL BUILDING SCHOOL

• Trail building classroom instruction (9 a.m. - noon)
• Lunch (noon - 1 p.m.)
• Build trail in the afternoon (1 p.m. - 4 p.m.)

SUNDAY

• Ride in the morning. Optional social lunch. Please do not plan a second build day.

Download all this info, plus more in the 2012 Host Package.