Today, gentlemen, may scare the piss out of you.

OK not really, but it’s a serious route I’ve got planned.  Hopefully we only get lost a couple of times.

With 60km of riding ahead of us, everyone is all smiles at the start.  Here we are just getting warmed up at Nickelplate Lake, where we ran into some friendly locals.  Nice to see ya, Barkley…

Once we hit the sub-alpine, the crew started to realize what a beast of a ride they were in for.  It’s true; nobody really takes the Okanagan seriously for some reason.  I think I may have a few converts…

Because of the high elevation, there are lots of places where the trail hasn’t really formed yet.  The meadow is covered by snow until quite late in the year, and doesn’t see much traffic anyway.

Another great group shot.  I think there were 17 of us today or something like that.

Near the top of Brent Mtn., and the hardest summit of the route.  A bit hazy right now.  I think that’s smoke coming up from California from the fires there.

If you could see the bottom of the valley, it’s about 40km away and 6000′ below here.

The old lookout on Brent Mtn.

7200′, and our high point for the day!

And of course, I have my AllRide socks.

Here’s another great shot from Dave Silver.

The ride down only involved a couple of “lost” moments.  On the last attempt back in early summer, we went the wrong way near the top.  I got that turn right, but didn’t realize how far we had to go across Isintok Ridge to get to the turn.  Only wasted a few minutes, and it was worth it.  While the June Creek trail we did before was pretty good, this one was WAY longer.  Props to the logging company for leaving the trail intact and cleaning it up nice, too.

Another tough turn to make down in the flats was slightly more difficult to find, and the death of my gps meant that while I prepared for the day with a backup navigation system, it was all about old school route finding.  Luckily, perseverance paid off with only a minimal delay and one random fence crossing.

All this meant that we got tons more singletrack than last time, and popped out on Shingle Creek Road with plenty of juice left in the legs to hit the final climb to access Trout Creek Canyon.

Quite a way to end an epic ride.   10+ km of prime singletrack.  Although the dead babies hanging from trees were a little creepy…

What ride in the Okanagan would be complete without a little beach and beer action at the end?

Or an epic sunset?

Or an epic sunset BBQ?

Once again, a huge day for the crew.   This was actually an alternate ride for the Hurtin’ 4 Vert trip from last year, so in that tradition here’s some stats:

60km
5k’ up
10k’ down (and yes, I’m mixing my units.  I don’t care, it’s how I roll…)