P.E.I. trail repairs could take weeks in the aftermath of Fiona

The president of Island Trails remembers what the Winter River trail looked like after post-tropical storm Dorian. The damage was extensive. But looking around the path on Tuesday the destruction from Fiona is beyond compare.

"I've never been next to where a bomb has gone off but if I was able to describe it, it looks like a bomb has gone off in the woods," said Greg McKee. 

"It's not a very secure feeling and it's relatively quite dangerous in here now."

Trees on the trail have fallen in every direction. The sound of chainsaws rings loudly through the forest as crews try to clear a path, followed by the sound of trees creaking when the chainsaws are turned off.

"There's massive trees down, there's dangerous widow makers hanging above us," said McKee.

McKee said volunteers are working around three hours at a time. But the task ahead is "monumental." 

"We basically are breaking a hole through," he said. 

"Anything that is really too dangerous for a chainsaw operator and a small crew to handle at this moment, we're leaving."

Crews have made progress at the start of the trail, but a couple of kilometres in, there's a dead end blocked entirely by debris.

"It is what it is. There's no magic pill to make this all go away," said McKee.

"It worries me that we're not going to have a number of trails open this winter for use."

In Stratford, most of the town's trails are finally open after weeks of repairs.

"It was an incredible storm and it knocked down an awful lot of trees," said Mayor Steve Ogden. 

"We're asking people just to go along the trails and not to go into the woods because there still are some, as we call them, widow makers or dangerous trees that are possibly going to fall. But we've really tried to clear the ones out around the trail as much as possible."