It has been determined the section of trail near 68 Avenue has failed and will be closed indefinitely, if not permanently (Photo: City of Grande Prairie)

By Shaun Penner

Near 68 Avenue

City assessing options as slope fails at section of Muskoseepi trail

May 22, 2021 | 7:00 AM

The City of Grande Prairie says the damage to the section of paved trail in Muskoseepi Park to the north of 68 Avenue has worsened and that the slope where the trail is located has failed, meaning the city is assessing its options as to how to move forward.

The section of trail was closed on Tuesday after significant cracks began to form in the pavement. Those cracks followed a closure in July of 2020 because of sloping issues along that section of trail adjacent to Bear Creek.

“We’ve had our eye on it for quite a while. I think we all knew it was going to fail,” said Transportation and Parks Manager for the city Robert Carroll, adding the weather earlier this week seemed to have sped up the slopes failure.

“With this last rain we had, it pretty much saturated all the soil, and once the soil gets wet it gets heavy, and the type of soil that’s there is a clay-type material that once water gets at it, it loses its rigidity and sloughs off.”

The city describes a ‘failed slope’ as a section of land which is shifting downward towards the creek, creating an unstable base.

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In the meantime, the city is continuing to monitor the slope failure site, through such things as data collected from the slope movement monitors established in the area earlier in 2021.

Carroll adds they have retained a geotechnical specialist who is currently building cost estimates for the repair of the trail at that site.

He admits he is concerned about how much a full repair would cost.

“Obviously, it’s a big job. It’s well into the millions, we think, to repair that,” said Carroll.

As a temporary workaround, Carroll says they have placed a wood chip trail up the hill adjacent to the failed slope site as a detour for hikers and cyclists.

The temporary detour is highlighted in orange, while the red highlighting denotes the section of failed slope (Courtesy of the City of Grande Prairie)

However, to address accessibility issues, the city is looking at placing a paved trail along the easement just to the west of the 68 Avenue trailhead, between Starbucks and the residences in Mission Heights, which will connect to the park entrance at 71 Avenue.

“It’s going to be an option for now, anyways, until we make a final decision as to what we’re going to do at the slope failure itself.”

While that may end up being the permanent solution in terms of realigning the trail because of the slope failure, Carroll is holding out hope that the trail can be fixed where it has failed, as it would keep the trail going through the park rather than a residential neighbourhood.

“Hopefully (the cost estimate) comes back that we can re-establish that trail close to where it failed,” said Carroll.

“But that’s for council to decide once we get the cost of that repair back.”

As for those homes in Mission just up from the failed slope site, Carroll says there is currently no risk of slumping issues to be concerned about.

“That’s the information that we have from a preliminary report, that the failure is very localized to where it is right now,” said Carroll. “It doesn’t seem right now that those houses are in any kind of danger.

“For now, there is no imminent danger.”