Last Saturday we were snowmobiling at Caribou Basin north of Revelstoke. No one in the group of five has been to this particular area before. My group has been coming out to Revelstoke to snowmobile from a range of 10 to 20 years, so we are aware of how the Caribou closures work. I looked at the Revelstoke club site to get the directions and to find out about the closures. So we woke up to clear skies Saturday and decide to explore somewhere new. So head up to Caribou staging area. The place was quite busy. We unload and head up we notice how well the trail is marked and take notice how the corridor is set up to the open area. We get to open area and start to tour around. We see a steep climb into the most eastern bowl. We get into the east bowl riding around. We decide to go down to this lake. I did mention to the group we need to pay close attention to any closure signs. So we dropped down to this small lake and go about another ½ mile not dropping down a lot so I was thinking we were ok to do so. There was also old track around so without seeing signs we feel pretty comfortable doing so. So we get to a wall of trees and we realize we can’t go any further. So we take a break in the sun.
Soon we hear a Helicopter and then see it overhead. It circles around us and then comes in lower and I realize it is going to land. It lands nearby and two guys in uniforms with hand guns and wearing MEC sunglasses come over to us. I then get the feeling something is wrong. He begins to tell us that we are in a closed area and he is going write us all tickets for $230 each. We plead with him that we had no idea that we were in a closed area and that there was no signs. He then gives us a break and tickets 3 out of 5 of us with $230 which totals $690 worth of fines. I’m just sick to my stomach can’t believe that we screw up like this. He also goes on to says that we should have used are GPS coordinates that are posted on the Revelstoke Snowmobile site to know where the boundaries were. They take a bunch of pictures of us and our snowmobiles. We ask who else is in the chopper besides the pilot they tell us someone from the Ministry of Environment is the chopper. He did not have the balls to show his face to us. So they finish writing up the ticket and we get back up to the open area. We spent the next 30 to 45 minutes searching for any signs that we may have missed. We found none.
So I get back home and decide to PM Powder Puff on here and tell her what happened. She put me in contact with the guy from the club who is working with the government on the Caribou closure boundaries. He tells me where we ticketed that the boundaries were not yet determined for that area and have not been signed. He also says that Government officials have stated that anybody that was in that area would not get ticketed until the boundaries were determined. I tell him about what the MEC sunglass wearing gun packing fish cop said about the GPS coordinates. He informs me that there is no GPS coordinates posted because the boundary has not been determined.
So it sounds like they just need to pay the Selkirk Helicopters rental with trying to trap us into paying tickets. This is not about saving Caribou it’s about making sledders look bad.
The 3 of us that were ticketed are disputing it. The hearing is supposed to be in Revelstoke. So it would be cheaper for us just to pay the tickets but that would make us guilty of something we are not.
I just thought I would share what how screwed up and corrupt the BC government is and how the sledders seem to always loose out in the name of saving the environment.
Happy sledders just before we were nailed
The visitors.
Link to video of Chopper getting the "us bad guys"
Soon we hear a Helicopter and then see it overhead. It circles around us and then comes in lower and I realize it is going to land. It lands nearby and two guys in uniforms with hand guns and wearing MEC sunglasses come over to us. I then get the feeling something is wrong. He begins to tell us that we are in a closed area and he is going write us all tickets for $230 each. We plead with him that we had no idea that we were in a closed area and that there was no signs. He then gives us a break and tickets 3 out of 5 of us with $230 which totals $690 worth of fines. I’m just sick to my stomach can’t believe that we screw up like this. He also goes on to says that we should have used are GPS coordinates that are posted on the Revelstoke Snowmobile site to know where the boundaries were. They take a bunch of pictures of us and our snowmobiles. We ask who else is in the chopper besides the pilot they tell us someone from the Ministry of Environment is the chopper. He did not have the balls to show his face to us. So they finish writing up the ticket and we get back up to the open area. We spent the next 30 to 45 minutes searching for any signs that we may have missed. We found none.
So I get back home and decide to PM Powder Puff on here and tell her what happened. She put me in contact with the guy from the club who is working with the government on the Caribou closure boundaries. He tells me where we ticketed that the boundaries were not yet determined for that area and have not been signed. He also says that Government officials have stated that anybody that was in that area would not get ticketed until the boundaries were determined. I tell him about what the MEC sunglass wearing gun packing fish cop said about the GPS coordinates. He informs me that there is no GPS coordinates posted because the boundary has not been determined.
So it sounds like they just need to pay the Selkirk Helicopters rental with trying to trap us into paying tickets. This is not about saving Caribou it’s about making sledders look bad.
The 3 of us that were ticketed are disputing it. The hearing is supposed to be in Revelstoke. So it would be cheaper for us just to pay the tickets but that would make us guilty of something we are not.
I just thought I would share what how screwed up and corrupt the BC government is and how the sledders seem to always loose out in the name of saving the environment.
Happy sledders just before we were nailed
The visitors.
Link to video of Chopper getting the "us bad guys"
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