Forest Service recognized for Meager Creek work By Jack Christie Special tribute will be paid to Meager Creek hot springs on Sept. 16. A delegation from the Hot Springs Association of Japan, headed by Charles Rummel, a Tokyo-based English teacher from North Vancouver, will present the Forest Service with a certificate of excellence. Founded in 1929, and with a membership of 2,700 owners of hot-spring inns and hotels, the association will honour the work done by Mike Sato of Sea to Sky Onsen who supervised the building of a Japanese-style bathing pool at the springs, north-west of Pemberton. John Crooks, Forest Service recreation officer in charge of the hot springs, told Pique that the delegation would journey to Meager following the presentation, providing the road is open. A risk-assessment study of the notoriously unstable region is being carried out by Baumann Engineering of Squamish and is expected to be delivered before the end of the year. Following the signing of an Order in Council in Victoria on Aug. 20 that exempts the pool at Meager Creek from the Bathing Pool Regulation Act, dipping is once again officially sanctioned there. Although the springs may have reopened, a nearby bridge hasn’t been as lucky. Debris torrents that originate at the base of the glacier on Mount Meager spill down Capricorn Creek and have repeatedly blown out a crossing since last September. In order to maintain its work schedule, CRB Logging has kept an excavator on standby beside the creek throughout the summer. With activity in the woods winding down for the year, the Meager Creek Forestry Road may remain closed until further notice. That hasn’t deterred a handful of people from fording the creek and walking or cycling the final 4 kilometres from Capricorn to the hot springs. Until recently a similar scenario kept Sloquet hot springs, located at the north-west corner of Harrison Lake, off limits to all but true hot springs devotees. To find out if Meager Creek Forestry Road is open, call the Squamish Forest District office at 898-2100, or visit their web site: www.for.gov.bc.ca/squamish
