I can't go ski or climb these days, so I've been struggling to find interesting things to do.
Last weekend Maddy, Cam, Rich, & I went up to the Chilcotins for an impromptu weekend of alpine mountain biking. This place is unreal. It's my third year there, and it never gets old.
On Saturday we went to explore "Little Paradise Valley", which did not live up to it's name (shocker).
Much of the trail looked like this:
But there were brief sections of mediocrity
The most interesting part was coming back along the Mud Creek FSR. On the way in we had descended a narrow steep section of road covered in fist sized river rocks. Now, we were coming back and trying to go up it. I tried to rock crawl it in first in 4 wheel low with little success. I tried again in second and gave'r and made it part way up again. I told everyone I was going to try third (4 wheel low) and they all got out of the car... what?
I gave it a good run up and got a nice bump out of the water bar at the bottom of the hill. The 4runner bumped, jerked, jumped, and probably only touched the ground for brief seconds at at time, but it stayed on the road and we managed to not get stuck.
The next day we woke up and got another leisurely start (9:30 for Maddy & Rich, 10 for Cam & I). Our plan was to bike up the Pearson Creek FSR and then take the High Trail, which goes over two 2000+ meter passes, and link it up with Gun Meadows & Gun Creek.
Maddy & Rich started up the PC FSR while Cam & I shuttled a car to a more convenient location. I caught up to Maddy & Rich as they got to the trail head. Cam showed up a few minutes later. From here we got on some nice single track that gradually climbs in the alpine. After some stupidity, we made to the first pass in the right place
We re-located High Trail and began our first real descent of the day from 2000m. Dickson in the background.
Fun single track dropped us down to the valley where the trail turns right and goes through a narrow valley, then climbs up to where it opens up. We stopped and had lunch here to fuel up for the climb up to Windy Pass. After lunch we had some route-finding decisions. The trails up here go into junctions with other trails that turn out to be fake. And last year, we took a wrong turn during an electrical storm turned blizzard. https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/M ... directlink
This year Maddy made sure we didn't have to thwack through slippery bushes with hidden creeks and marmot holes. My knee thanks her.
A gradually steepening climb led to some hike-a-bike that led to the top of windy pass. Cam tops out
Cue 4 hour descent:
Rich starts
Maddy continues
After an hour or so of almost continuous descent, we got to Gun Meadows. Maddy cruises through, with a different perspective of Dickson
Cam gets into the Birch forest near the creek
Then we had another 20km or so of fast single track to get back to the cars.
Cold beers were waiting at the car. mmmm
9 hours, 2000+m of vertical, ~50km Woo. Want more... but it'll have to wait till March
