The Town of the Blue Mountains (TBM) council wants to explore the possibility of using the Tomahawk Golf Course, the Georgian Trail and the Craigleith Provincial Park for winter recreation.
“This is an important outdoor recreational option that we could provide. Not only for tourists, but more importantly, to our own residents who are kind of hanging around looking for something to do this winter,” said TBM councillor Rob Sampson.
At the council meeting held on Monday, TBM council directed staff to prepare a staff report that will examine opening Tomahawk for the winter months, as well as grooming or maintaining both the grounds of the golf course and the Georgian Trail for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.
“Tomahawk is 51.44 acres. It’s a sizeable piece of property, and quite frankly, even the Georgian trail is another opportunity where we can take a look to see, from a staff resource perspective, the ability for us to maintain it,” said TBM CAO Shawn Everitt. “If we're going to be marketing trails, then we will have to monitor and do some work on these properties.”
Sampson also pointed out that Blue Mountain Resort recently announced its intentions to offer ski hill access to season pass holders with only a select number of advanced passes available.
Town officials anticipate those who cannot access the ski hill will move on to neighbouring outdoor recreation options.
“We should be looking at ways to provide people visiting our town with other things to do when they find that the Village has reached capacity and they can't go skiing,” said Sampson.
Ryan Gibbons, director of community services for TBM says town staff have been examining the town’s winter recreation options through the Leisure Activity Plan that is currently underway.
“We've had some discussions over the last couple weeks with the local service clubs and different associations, looking at opportunities that might be available for this winter to allow people to maintain their distance outside and make use of some properties that we hadn't in the past,” Gibbons said.
However, council members said they would like to see these properties fast-tracked outside of the Leisure Activity Plan, to allow for use this winter.
“There is the potential for a lot of people to be coming up this way. So, how do we accommodate them and provide safe access to some of our recreational trails and provide the facilities necessary for people to use them?” said TBM Mayor Alar Soever. “This would be a way of increasing the capacity here without crowding out anything else.”
Gibbons added that TBM does currently own some of the equipment required to groom the trails.
Along with exploring the two town-owned properties, TBM staff and council would also like to explore the possibility of opening Craigleith Provincial Park, which is under the management of the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
Craigleith Provincial Park has historically closed every year around mid-October and is not reopened until the spring.
“We did have a conversation with the minister a few weeks ago, and we will be following up with this request as well,” added Soever.
TBM staff will be preparing a report for council on the feasibility of opening the Tomahawk Golf Course and the Georgian Trail for the upcoming 2020/21 season.
The report is expected to include any budget implications and will be presented to council at the next council meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 2.
