Golfers who return to a B.C. golf course heavily damaged by a mudslide in July 2012 will be challenged with some new hazards and terrain.
The slide pushed 65,000 square metres of mud, boulders and trees down the mountain.
The slide damaged seven golf fairways and filled a huge golf pond on hole No. 12 with rock, trees, mud, and debris at Fairmont Mountainside Golf Course in Fairmont Hot Springs.
Initially, it was expected that the golf course would be closed for the season. But a Herculean effort by staff and volunteers allowed it to reopen last Labour Day.
Improvements occurred over the winter, most notably the dredging of the pond on hole 12. Re-sodding was needed on fairways and greens torn away by the slide.
While some of the debris was hauled away, some rock and dirt has been used to reshape the golf course and create new or larger tee boxes, said Dave Dupont, general manager of Mountainside Villas.
The villas are vacation condominiums nestled around the fairways on Mountainside Golf Course.
Steve Vander Maaten, an employee of Mountainside Villas, points to a new forward tee box on the 12th hole that was created out of the rubble from the slide.
Below him is the pond that was filled with mud during the slide.
The pond has since been made deeper.
A smaller mudslide on June 20 filled the pond again and ripped out some landscaping. It is being dredged again.
A giant tee box has incorporated some of the rubble that was deposited on hole 16, where the largest volume and size of debris was deposited.
Some boulders were more than one metre high.
The journey to restoring the golf course was documented in detail in Canadian Groundskeeper Magazine by Peter Smith, VP of golf course operations at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort.
The story, including before and after photos, can be viewed at http://www.kenilworth.com/publications/cg/de/201305/files/4.html