Club Tread 2010
 

I was cleaning out a drawer and came across this calendar from CT’s heyday. The names of some long gone members such as Rachelo, Sodbuster, wbylsma, guntis brings back some fond memories. The only person that still posts on this site that had a photo in this calendar is Solo75. The good old days.

That's great memory. Cover photo by Matt Gunn. In one hand sad to see levels this forum has fallen to since its heydays, in the other fantastic it has survived that long & still gets some posts


Kudos to solo75 for sticking around!

Zeljkok, with all your amazing photos I'm surprised that you don't have a photo in that calendar. Maybe you didn't submit any that year. Thank you for all you do in keeping the Alberta side alive.

Thank you as well for all the contributions over the years; I was just enjoying last night your Verdant Pass report & thinking I should re-visit this summer

I second that. Zeljkok is one of the few that keeps the Alberta section alive.

Lobo, you got some great shots also. Maybe you should start posting at least once in a while.

Second that. Doesn't have to be epic 40+ km hike up Alexandra or Fortress Lake / Chaba, etc. Even some of these "easy" walks around Jasper are good. I posted recently Siffleur Falls which has same level of difficulty as walk around Lake Louise, who cares. Pics will be nice & those of us that still come here will appreciate.

I am grateful that the site exists, and very thankful to those who post so many wonderful hikes.

The vast flowering of activity-specific sites seems to me to have landed historically between, say, 2004 and 2010.
Most sites I have participated on, or read frequently, are considerably thinner these days. Some have disappeared.
In part, the gargantuan Facebook drew many interest groups to its platform.
I do see a very slight reversal of the steady erosion of activity-specific sites as people get fed up with FB.

On other matters, I may have found a hiking partner to do the Lake Abraham-Lake Louise traverse with me. Something I would never have known about without zeljkok's Siffleur Falls account, which in turn sent me to Ben Gadd's Canadian Rockies Geology Road Tours to read about the area and its thrust faults.

Many heartfelt thanks to those who post, and keep the site alive!

Those were the good 'ol days, lol. That is an excellent calendar pic.
I will still continue to hang out here, and hopefully post some trip reports when I get back hiking, but the site really needs an owner-operator that can put their love into it to get rid of the quirks that some people don't like. I hang around FB a bit but information on FB is so unorganized and you get to see what the FB master wants you to see. I don't like that. Like , Oh we have one post for YOU in this group! Mean while in another group there are a ton of posts that I would be more interested in that don't show up. Gah.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, happy easter all!

People participate in groups, online or offline, for various reasons. Majority follow trends. This is big reason behind FB, "Gram", etc. success ("I got 122 likes, how cool am I??") Some crave attention/recognition ("Look where I've been & what mountain I climbed"). Bullies want to stir trouble & argue. And then there are those that don't care about any of the above and just want to share & feel part of like-minded community without expecting something in return



In some ways it is better CT is the way it is now. There is far less traffic & posted info, but there is also no trolling, arguing, personal attacks etc. that were also prevalent in heydays. Yes, it would be nice to have guntises, simons, sodbusters, etc etc again, but it is also fine if we don't. Nice people still come here & there is enough info to keep interest.

Bottom line. I always thought right way was for group of us to try to purchase CT back, then run from voluntary donations in non-profit fashion. But it was too much of a risk to try to do it by myself.


Happy Easter!

I assume you mean the risk of attempting a data migration and managing the site long-term, not the funding risk. Can't see it being more than $1000 a year with the volume the site gets.

That's ongoing anual cost (more than a grand probably). But that can be recovered in different ways. Larger issue is one -time cost to wrestle it off current owners. How much is it? I don't know. What did Jim get for sale? I don't know. Would they be even willing to sell? etc etc. I think someone (BillyGoat?) inquired or even tried at a time but didn't work.


Then yes, there is also data migration issue. At first things would be worse from what they are right now. But that would be fixed with time, 'love' as martin calls it.

The data migration would be a bit complicated. It would have to merge new and old stuff. The big question is whether the old Snitz forum data is available, much info was lost in that first conversion, such as picture captions.

This thread does stir up some good memories.. Remember Jim took over this site in 2001; it was huge effort and personal expense on his side to manage it; he did assign moderator to help out.


Both positive, and negative. Bullying and Trolling were definitely problems, a number showing no respect for others.

There was some serious growing pains when current owners took over this site; they had some great people who did a lot to help out and make this site work. Few things missed yes, and some missing.

A fun one I tried to get them to bring back was the most popular photo ranking; i.e. the most viewed photo. That gave users a great medium to compete within, and to contribute beautiful shots; then they also had prior year revisits of 1 year, 2 year, and 5 years back in history. I think it must be close to 5 years since the current owners took over.


K