Mountain biking the Don Valley \/ Less than 24 Hours after the July rain storm Carnage

This was another crazy rain day on July 16th 2024. Another round of flooding areas surrounding the Don River. There were major road & rail closures.
The #mtbladies Dawn & Pauline & I decided to take a ride through the Southern #donvalleymtbtrails to assess just haw bad it really was. Any trail that bordered the Don River or Taylor creek was totally flooded. Trails were completely washed with areas under or around bridges totally blocked by trail debris.
‪@dontmesswiththedon‬ has setup donation page to allow those who wish to help but cant be there in person, to contribute. They have already started the trail cleanup & rebuilding process.
www.dontmesswi...
Look for more volunteer days & opportunities to help this worthy organization recover the #donvalleytrails
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Recorded with the DJI Osmo Action 3 & Insta360 One RS Action cams.
Riders: Pauline, Dawn, Kirill & Andre
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[@ExhumedToConsume]

Very unfortunate, but it could be a blessing in disguise. The erosion on certain trails could bring new life into them, hopefully it'll bring the riding community who truly cares about the Don together to do dig days!

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

@@ExhumedToConsume Don't mess with the Don is organizing cleanups and trail repair events. Some of the trail sections were 100% gone unfortunately. Specially along the rivers edge and the train tracks. In some places the fence is hanging in the air. The track beds are now at risk so that's a Rail line owner repair issue along with TRCA to do major land and infrastructure projects required to restore river banks and shore up against erosion. We all know how govt jobs go... I'm not holding out hope for some trail sections.

[@ExhumedToConsume]

@@AndreLaurentMTB Hopefully that means someone with a keen eye builds new ones!

[@donsmith2833]

Don't Mess With the Don took care of most, if not all, of the trees down on the weekend along The Flats. Metrolinx brought in equipment to clear the debris at the rail bridge. The south entrance/exit for the flats was also repaired and may be better than it was before the rain.

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

That's great. Hopefully they have another event soon we can get to for the other trails.

[@donsmith2833]

@@AndreLaurentMTB That would be great, having that many people there working made the job much easier. This must be what it is like when you have a proper association to take care of trails.

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

@@donsmith2833 ENT?!?!

[@artvandelay1720]

oh lol I was riding right behind you on the Ridge

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

The ridge was in pretty good shape...

[@theepimountainbiker6551]

Amazing the destructive power of nature

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

Definitely. This was the worst one I've seen

[@artvandelay1720]

I was surprised how little damage there was to a lot of the blue and black trails. I guess most have decent enough drainage that it doesn't funnel water down them.

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

The Don is the wild West of trail systems. There's sporadic maintenance of trails by the dedicated few with the city doing stuff around the Crothers Woods & Loblaws area. The trails are destroyed more by weather events than any amount of users, MTB, running, hiking, dog walking etc... Don't Mess With The Don is the only public organization that actively does a great job of cleaning up and trail maintainence. TRCA likes to remove trails from trailforks but forgets alot Strava or any of the other MTB apps but I've never seen them build or promote trail activity.

[@nationbasketelpeque3894]

👍👍🤩🤩😍from France

[@AndreLaurentMTB]

Thanx for having a look.