Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Shulapsin n Relaxin....




There's a little piece of single-track magic that in my opinion ranks right near the top of any trail in South West B.C. It's one of those gems that when it all lines up.... there's nowhere else you'd rather be. Perfect weather, perfect soil, perfect temps, and no bugs is what we got on Saturday.


We had a relaxin drive over the Hurley Friday night and enjoyed some views of the Bridge River Valley. This is one of my favourite vantages of Mt. Sloan. Eric surveyed a spot to land a plane.  


On route we also got a solid view of the Shulaps's Mt Rex where we would be the next day.


With the Norco Bicycles global product launch next week we were asked to break in a couple of bikes. Eric was aboard a 2014 Range Killer B 27.5.    


The morning began with the "always way to steep" grunt to the alpine up an old mining track.

     

Indian paint brush and 2014 Rock Shox Pike in their natural environments...



Danielle was aboard a 2014 Carbon Revolver 27.5. Despite it being 20lbs she was jealous of Eric's and my rear suspension so I bolted on a Double Barrel for her. She felt better.  




The views opened up a couple of hours later.


While traversing the ridge we heard what we thought was some rockfall in the distance. It turned out to be a pair of mountain sheep ramming each other's horns over a couple of women. In all my years coming here we'd never seen the actual animal this place is named after. In St'at'imcets language Shulaps is the word for the ram of the mountain sheep.

 


After another hour or so this place is so green it hurts your eyes.... The "drop in" part of the trail began so we set our suspension to "pin it".





After 4750ft of single-track descent we decided the Revolver's brakes were broken in. The rotor colours gave it away.




The relaxin part of the trip began Saturday night with a swim in Marshal Lake and a growler of Hopwork's July IPX. The following day we headed west and hit up a lap of Molly Dog above Tyaughton Lake.  

2 comments:

Ina said...

Nice - that's relaxin'!

PAT MULROONEY said...

Cheers Ina.... Relaxin indeed!