The Wolverine Nordic and Mountain Society (WNMS) is best known for the work it has put into the outdoor infrastructure around Tumbler Ridge. Starting with Nordic (read: cross county) skiing, including building a cabin on a bench overlooking the Murray River, the club quickly expanded to building hiking trails, backcountry campsites and the Emperor’s Challenge. Now the club has added one more bit of kit to its list of recreation opportunities: a nine hole disc golf course over by the Tumbler Ridge Saddle Club.
On May 17, a group of volunteers went out and built the new nine-hole course.
According to WNMS board member Mark Campbell, the WNMS entered into a lease agreement with the District of Tumbler Ridge earlier this year.
“We intentionally constructed a relatively beginner type course to try to develop a local player base,” says Campbell. “But the land is easily expandable to a much more challenging course at a later date, when we have an established local disc golf community.”
The club has put in permanent baskets, signs at the start of each hole showing the lay of the land and par, as well as tee pads, which are little more than 4X4s.
Each hole has two tee pads, a white beginner pad and a slightly more challenging red pad. These are not to be confused with golf’s men and women’s tees. Indeed, says Campbell, there can be up to four tee pads with increasing levels of difficulty.
While most of the course had been built, it’s not quite finished, and Campbell is hoping to have a grand opening sometime later this summer.
Once it is open, Campbell recommends installing the UDisc app on your phone before heading out.
The new course replaces a temporary course that was closer to the ball diamonds which in turn replaced temporary baskets by the high school. Campbell says he’d love to see the baskets return to the high school to give teens more opportunity to play the sport.
Above photo: Mark Campbell helped spearhead the creation of Tumbler Ridge’s new disc golf course. The baskets are in, but a few finishing touches need to be added before it officially opens.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
