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Kamloops Hiking Club has been working with the Kamloops Thompson Trails Alliance on improving the Isobel Lake facility and work has now started with the generous support of FMCBC.

008The Kamloops Thompson Trails Alliance has undertaken an ambitious multi-year project to complete and enhance the low mobility trail system and related facilities at Isobel Lake, 25 km. north of Kamloops.

This project was started in 1994 by the BC Forest Service, but the trail system remains incomplete and many of the facilities were never constructed. School District #73 uses Isobel Lake for environmental education along with its nearby McQueen Lake Environmental Centre. Isobel Lake is well suited for this low mobility accessible project, which is expected to be welcomed as a recreational retreat for seniors and low mobility individuals of all ages. The trails and facilities will be built to current Parks Canada standards and allow both day use and camping opportunities.

With some start up funding already in place from the Federation of BC Mountain Clubs, the Kamloops Hiking Club and Kinder Morgan, work has already commenced with Alliance volunteers. Recreation Sites and Trails BC, who administer the site as part of the Isobel Lake Interpretive Forest, commissioned an Assessment Study, which points the way to the work to be done. A short section of roadway has already been moved to make room for the trail along the lake shore. Work parties on August 14 and August 24 upgraded the trail on both sides of a bridge to allow wheelchair access to the Forest Inn picnic shelter area.   As further funding becomes available and this worthwhile project is completed it will be a notable asset for low mobility individuals from Kamloops and far beyond.

By Doug Smith, FMCBC Director for the Kamloops Hiking Club