Urban Trail Will Link Kimberley and Cranbrook
The Trans Canada Trail is about to get one of the most breathtaking vistas that BC has to offer, a 100 mile panorama of the Rocky Mountain looking over the Wycliffe plains.
This marks a new era of Mountain biking, and trekking in the East Kootenays that starts in Kimberley, rolls past the new Shadow Mountain Development Lifestyle Community and connects to the hub of the valley Cranbrook.
“I know that I can speak for Shadow Mountain Family when I say that we truly thrilled that this project happening right in our back yard!” said Fred Mehl, “This new trail system is going to provide our future residents year round recreation, from hiking and biking in the summer months to snowshoeing and cross country skiing in the winter. This is going to be just fantastic.”
The federal and provincial governments are investing more than $1.8 million to turn an abandoned railway into a 25-km urban trail. The funding enables the City of Cranbrook to turn an abandoned railway along Highway 95A into a 25-kilometre, three-metre wide commuter and recreation path that connects to existing trails in Cranbrook and Kimberley.
The recently abandoned railway line provides a timely opportunity to link the region’s two largest communities and complete a section of the Trans Canada Trail that connects the Kootenay region with Alberta. This project is conditionally approved pending the successful completion of an environmental assessment.
“The rails to trails project will convert this unused railway grade into a community recreational trail, encouraging residents of Cranbrook and Kimberley to be active and get outdoors,” said Honourable Jim Abbott, M.P., “Our Government is working in partnership, through the Canada-B.C. Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund, to build healthy, prosperous communities.”
For over a hundred years, the railway between Kimberley and Cranbrook has been in place. With the mighty Sullivan Mine being closed for more than 6 years, the “Rails to Trails” program is beginning of a new Chapter for the area – that of year round recreation.
