History

From little things, big things grow.

Over 25 years ago, Cliff Miller and a few good friends founded SORCA. In the early days, they would get together a couple of times a week to build some trails. Sunday mornings were for quick meetings over coffee and then off for a group ride. How things have changed over time; now SORCA has weekly social rides and races followed by after-parties with attendance in the hundreds. We also have a paid trail crew, in addition to dozens of dedicated volunteers, who help maintain the trails.

Some of our major achievements over the years, in partnership with other community members, include:

1994

SORCA was at the table with BC Parks and came to agreement regarding the seasonal closure of the Four Lakes trail.

1999

SORCA and IMBA (International Mountain Bike Association), hosted the first provincial mountain bike summit where government representatives, mountain bike clubs and trail builders came together to discuss trail access, as well as building and maintenance issues. This resulted in the construction of IMBA Smart which was given official recognition by the provincial government via Section 102 approval and became the second legal trail be built in the valley

2003

Led the charge to “Save the Plunge” from being clear cut and was able to retain most of the characteristics of a forested trail on Powerhouse Plunge

2005

Created the Squamish Mountain Bike Master Plan which became a guiding document for mountain biking in Squamish.

2010

Secured funds for and built Half Nelson, one of the first big grants for an authorized machine built trail.

2012

Opened Section One of the Stl’lhalem Sintl’ climb trail with $30K funding from BC Timber Sales, and completed the build of Full Nelson. It was also the first year that we had a paid Trail Crew, drastically increasing the maintenance work we could get done.

2014

Spearheaded the build of the Mountain Bike Skills Park at Brennan Park Recreation Centre, which officially opened in Spring 2014

2015

Social Rides get cool – Who knew that riding bikes with 200 of your closest friends and celebrating afterwards could make Wednesday the best night of the week?

2016

Launched a crowdfunding campaign and raised over $100,000 to build the Stl’lhalem Sintl” expansion and Meadow of the Grizzly descent

2017

Initiated a summer employment program in partnership with the Squamish First Nation’s education and training division to get local First Nation youth employed and out working on the trails.

2018

Membership has exploded to more than 1700 strong. The Trail Crew now puts in more than 3000 yearly hours of work throughout the trail network. SORCA members feedback to Squamish’s official community plan results in trails and access to to the outdoors being a primary focus of the District of Squamish’s master planning document.