Step by step: Winter River Trail is getting a new boardwalk

One of the Island's most popular trails the Winter River Hiking Trailis getting a new boardwalk.

A group of volunteers is helping to build the boardwalk to replace temporary crossings in wet areas along the trail and allow for year-round use.

"It's going to extend the season of use for this trail and probably givea more pleasurable experience going through this section of the trail," Greg McKee, president of Island Trails said.

Popular for hiking and cross country skiing

The trail is just 15 minutes outside of Charlottetown.

It's popular for hiking and cross country skiing, but it's often too spongy and wet for either activity, especially in early spring and late fall.

Island Trails members have wanted to build a boardwalk over it for years.

"If we get a lot of rain it's very difficult to get through here withoutgetting very muddy, so we wanted to put some boardwalk. We've talked about it a number of times, but now we can actually go ahead and start building," said Bryson Guptill, an Island Trails board member.

'Quite a project'

The Rotary Club of Charlottetown Royalty provided the entire $20,000 to pay for the boardwalk.

A local homeowner agreed to grant access to his land in order to build it.

"It's going to be quite a project," Guptill said, adding that the team effort is mostly made up of volunteers.

"What you see is just a group of volunteers from Island Trails coming out with their hammers and doing their thing."

Non-invasive design

The boardwalk is a non-invasive design. Individual planks rest on larger boards over brush land.

Island Trails said the new boardwalk is approximately 800 feet in length, and will bring people closer to nature while preserving the natural landscape.

The boardwalk is expected to take about two weeks to complete.

The trail should be re-opened and available for year-round use by the end of October.

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