September 14, 2006

This afternoon Mark & I made the decision to cancel Silvertip for 2006.

It was very tough for either one of us to pull the plug on an event that's

been a big part of our lives over the past seven years. We had been

struggling for some weeks with possible course changes to work around

the issues and had two alternate courses set up. In the end it came

down to the fact that Catermole Timber would not guarantee that we had exclusive

use of the road that day. At present they are doing heavy road construction

as well as active logging in the area. As an example of how much this

has impacted us: the area we've always used as Aid Station 1,2,3 is now

a construction camp and helicopter landing pad. The second issue with the

course was the huge amount of overgrowth in the second and third legs.

My loyal Smart Ass crew spent 4+ hrs of backbreaking work clearing the

upper section of the 25K turnaround on Labour Day weekend only to

discover that legs 2 & 3 were in far worse condition. Right now we're

not able to address the status of future Silvertip Runs. Mark will be

contacting all registered runners to offer refund options. Much of the

entry fees for this year's run has already been spent however we both

felt it important to offer a refund to those who wanted one.

I'd like to thank all of you for participating over the years and making

Silvertip the low-cost, high-fun, grass-roots event it's always been.