Juneau takes Mountain Bike lessions

On Juneau's first birthday we promised her she could start riding the North Shore. On Sunday she went on her 3rd ride and started riding some classic wood-work Fromme mountain has to offer.

            

Loam sawing Reserectum....

Saturday morning I picked up Scott and Neil in Squamish and we headed north to check out a trail none of us had hit before. The weather wasn't perfect but the drizzle on the climb up would help keep us cool and the bugs down. After a couple of gruelling hours up a steep old road we found ourselves at the top of "Reserectum". The rumours of steep loam and surf style riding were right on... another piece of single-track heaven in Pemberton. With daylight still available we headed back towards Whistler and got a lap in on P.H.D. Summer's finally here.

Beers at the WaterShed!                          

Spring sprung on Mt Athelstan!

With only two days left before summer it was time for one last spring corn session. The weather this spring has been anything but cooperative to enjoy the usual views of the bigness of the Upper Lillooet. We left Vancouver Saturday night at 5:00pm and found ourselves setting up camp before sunset on the lower slopes of Mt. Athelstan near Pemberton. The weather looked promising as the evening progressed. 

                       

It was good to catch up with Jack, Dave and Zdenek over some fire cooked dogs and beverages.

 
With the massive ascent in front of us we got an early 5:00am start out of the tents and were on our way through the typical cut-block spring thrash.

   

After a few hours we found ourselves emerging from the forest and just below the ominous clouds that loomed above.

The upper slopes of Athelstan are covered in pumice from the ancient volcanic history of the area.

 
And then we entered the ultra thick cloud cover.

 
We got peaks through the occasional sucker hole.  

This is what the view should have looked like. This shot was taken a year and 2 weeks earlier.

 
We decided it was too thick to summit so we stopped 300m before the top. Not sure what's going on here but it looks intimate.

And we dropped in and "felt" our way down.

 
We eventually got below the ceiling and found the 4600ft avalanche path that led to the truck. Great views of the Lillooet ice-field opened up.

   

     
This couloir turned out to be great and just kept going!

We finally skied it out right to it's end over a few gaping holes into the creek and right to the spring wild flowers.

   
Only 5 minutes in the alder and we landed at the truck for some pops!

 

We'll be back!

Mt Strachan June corn session

Zdenek and I got in a quick summit of Mt Strachan last Sunday. The views over to Bowen Island were spectacular as usual. The north facing chute down to the Howe Sound Crest trail turned out to be pretty juicy. Long live long winters! Slide Show

      

Convict Lake, California S.U.P.

I managed to get in an evening of Stand up Paddle boarding during a sales trip last week in Mammoth Lakes, California. My friend Travis from Footloose Sports  took me out to Convict Lake at nearly 8000ft. This place was incredibly scenic! The guys from the shop also took me out for a ride in the Rock Creek Canyon. I snapped this shot of it from the plane on the way out. A great piece of single-track!

       


      

Pemberflow!

Danielle and Eric joined me June 4 for the first big Pemby ride of the year. A quick lap up Happy Trail to Waco Connector to the Nimby 50 brought us to Stimulus. Trail conditions were perfect!

           

 

Syncline

I finally had a chance to get a couple of rides in last week-end on the scenic Syncline trails near Hood River Oregon. I think it must have been 10 years since I last rode these trails. The single-track above the Columbia River is nothing short of amazing. My friends at Discover Bikes told me this was the best time of the year to hit it. Everything is green and the wildflowers are out. The only thing we had to watch out for was all the poison oak along the trailside. These are some of my favourite shots from the week-end. Slideshow