Discussion: Permanent Courses open at Canmore Nordic Center

Last weekend was the Grand Opening event of the Permanent Courses at the Canmore Nordic Center. There are four courses - Green, Blue, Black, and MTBO (colors correspond to ski-trail colors). These courses will be changed three times each year. There will be about 100 posts installed in the park, giving flexibility for new course designs. The courses use Sport Ident timing.

The project is a partnership between the Canmore Nordic Center Provincial Park, Trail Sports (the on-site equipment rental shop), and Alberta Orienteering.

The goal is to get more people to use the park by providing another interesting outdoor activity for visitors. If the project is successful we hope to copy it in other parks around Alberta and Western Canada.

Here is an article written about it in the local press:
http://www.getouttheremag.com/news.php?media_id=44...

What an impressive project! Well done.

Just curious, AZ--are you not worried about vandalism/theft of the SI units? Is there budgeted money to replace any units that go missing? Or perhaps you have figured out a way to install the units in the field so that they are difficult or impossible to tamper with.

Perhaps I have a too cynical view of your average American, but I can't imagine putting a project like this in place anywhere in the US. I do realize that Canadians are a better class of people, though :-)

Steve, check out the SportIdent mounting plates.

I'm not sure that's what AZ is using, but the product exists.

Steve, it's not just some random park; it's a National Team training centre for nordic skiing and biathlon, 1988 Olympics Trails, will be hosting WC ski and biathlon races in the near future. Some of the hardest ski trails in the world. People go there to train; its not going to attract skids there to break stuff.

AZ, nice, you got Erik Carleton out, one of the toughest dudes in Canmore!

As the NevMonster says, this park has such a clientele that we are not as concerned with vandalism as we might otherwise be. We feel / hope that it will be enough to 'make it difficult' to steal the SI units. In fact, we are more worried with frustrated kicks to the old fashioned pin punches!

Here are some photos of the design that the Nordic Center staff came up with... http://picasaweb.google.com/adrian.barebones.ca/Ca...#

You might notice that we didn't exactly have kids in mind when we decided how high the SI units would be mounted ;-) Not all of the posts have a handy set of stairs!

Ha well according to Bowling for Columbine, Canadians don't even lock their doors ;-)

AZ, awesome job. I sure hope that other clubs follow your example. I will for sure show it to Sovereign just to show them what they now have to do to rival with Canmore NOrdic, haha!

This looks awesome. Very impressive!