Tenquille alpine single-track

No matter how fit I feel, the Tenquille ride always feels like a big day. That is when you earn the ride up via the "Old Hurley". There's not much more satisfying than cracking a beer at the truck and not having to do a shuttle retrieval!

The wild raspberries were as big as I'd ever seen and the burn section had a lot of new growth now in it's second year after the fire.       

Spalush Peridotite high traverse

Every year as the snow starts to melt I start going over the topo maps looking for high alpine routes in unfamiliar areas. You never quite know if the zone will be "bike friendly" but that's probably most of the allure. It's been interesting how what I want to do on my bike and snowboard are merging closer together each year. This week-end we found a zone that would easily be shreddable on either weapon. So we packed up and headed out of the city Friday night and set up camp.
 

Cheers to another great August week-end in the mountains!  

"Shulaps Gold".... Tour de Chilcotins Day 5

I awoke on day 5 with excessive beer doping regrets. Maybe I should have done this clean? After a few cups of coffee and a real breakfast that Danielle whipped up I was ready for the final and biggest stage. We set off with a 3 km warm-up but soon after hit the wall that would be our 1500m climb to the high alpine! Slideshow

Some spots were ridable.....

And others were definitely not!

After 3 hours we reached one of my favourite valleys on the planet and found the perfectly etched single-track gold of the Lillooet Range.

It seemed to be raining everywhere but where we were!

And then it was time to shred the 1500m descent! I couldn't remember a time when this trail was in better shape! A little bit of moisture made it as tacky as it's ever been.

Cheers to a great 5 days of riding!

"Bike Porn Stars".... Tour De Chilcotins....Day 3,4

Friday night Drey rolled in from Litton and Colin and Dave came in from the Hurley to join us for the rest of the tour. We packed up and headed North East to the end of a very deactivated road that would be our starting point for the next two days adventure. After more beer doping overnight we awoke to a cloudless day that we proclaimed "The first day of summer 2011". It was warm and the bugs were out but nothing would stop us from having an amazing trip. Colin tried hard to screw things up by throwing his shoes across the first river crossing (1 minute from the truck) and coming up short. One of his shoes was destined to be a Salmon for good but Danielle saved the day by snagging it at the last minute. Slideshow

Hopefully my shadow wasn't representative of the length of the ride?  

I helped Drey out with a few adjustments on her Norco Sight Forma care of a hacksaw.

After an hour on the road we found the trailhead that would lead us to the gold!

It was pretty much a push / bushwhack all the way to the alpine with the exception of a few meadowy spots.

And lot's of these.... We kept our shoes on for the rest of the trip.

Girls, meadows, and Bikes.

There were disagreements below Castle Mountain.

But most worked out in the end.

We finally reached the end of our first long climb up to our chosen pass to get to the goods. The views were stunning and the riding was incredible.

And we dropped into our first descent of the day at 4:30pm.

But had many more ups in the day.....

And side-hill traverses.

The promise land was close now so we decided to take a well deserved break before the descent down to "Bike Porn" camp.

         
We arrived at Camp at 8:00 pm just in time for some sweet nectar we'd beed hauling around all day!

A lone Billy Goat stood guard over us all evening until the sun set.

   

The campfire brought us together under a perfect night sky. Another amazing day in the South Chilcotins!

We awoke to another bluebird day but just as we were taking down camp some lenticular clouds appeared in the distance. A storm was on the way for sure.    

The day started off with a big climb up to a high pass at 2300m. The weather was holding.

We decided to climb one of our favourite peaks in the zone and get a full Bike Porn run into the valley below.

Just as I reached the top of the climb I looked down and found an incredible ancient sea creature fossil.
  

   

Mmmmm.... Bike Porn! When we returned to the valley we made our way out to another old road and road 20kms back to the truck. Needless to say we were a little punched.

   
After a couple of hours of driving we were at our next camp spot and positioned for Day 5......