Enter…Stage 5. The ppenultimate stage, the last day. Also, Labour Day…your last chance to wear white. Yeah …. right.
Grab the Google Earth version of this post HERE.
I’ve also got the whole tour packaged up in a single file HERE.
Last night was cool, but not fricken’ freezing like the night before. We woke up to crisp bluebird skies, and a little gift from my buddy Dale at Tyax Air.
Dale had a lot of loads going into Spruce today, but was empty flying back most of the day, so nice guy that he is he flew our trailers out for us. This meant that we could ride up and over Windy Pass and out via Eldorado Basin and Lick Creek free from our loads. Which is a seriously good thing considering the scale of the route today.
The cool air of the morning was great on the climb up Windy. Here’s Shreddie during a rare flat moment on the first climb.
It’s a helluva climb to Windy from the back side like this, but it’s worth it. There was lots of mandatory walking, but some of us are stubborn….
Not Guinea. He walked the whole way.
Yeah, the pass. We started well on the other side of those mountains in the background, four days ago.
Sort of like a moonscape up here.
There you go, right from the entry to the site.
Steve Mitchell photo.
Yeah, now it’s time to go down. This was the best section of the entire route. It seemed like endless flow.
See those two dark peaks in the center? That’s where we’re headed.
Here’s Peter. I couldn’t place Peter in my memory for the first little bit. He sure seemed familiar, then we figured out that I used to tune his bike way back in ’92 or so. He had a green Kona Hot all macked out with XTR. Now he’s riding a plastic Giant. Man, you should have seen that sucker flex when he was pulling the trailer. Not that it slowed him down any. That little S.O.B. is strong.
Bri guy on the west side of the pass.
Chris railing a corner.
Just to put it in perspective. Look for the rider.
Same spot, looking back. Usually you’re going up this way to get to Spruce Lake.
Now we’re down into Eldorado Basin.
Like daughter…
…like father.
Steve charges into Eldorado.
After a timeless descent into Eldorado Basin, we had to turn and climb up to Eldorado Cabin.
..which of course deserved a little break. Only one more climb to go….
The last pass.
The final descent is the Lick Creek trail, which isreasonably technical and almost steep in a couple of spots.
The really cool thing for me was I that I hiked this trail with my dad and his buddy way back when I was about 12. See? That’s me…
This is my old man, back when he wasn’t so old. he might have been feeling kind of old that day, as I seem to remember an awful lot of Budweiser at the cabin, but he couldn’t have been any older than 42 there.
See, the same lake in the background. I was able to match a couple of terrain features in shots from both trips, but I won’t bore you with those. If you really want to see where we were, check the Google Earth links at the top of the post.
OK, downhill time.
Let ‘er rip…
Peter doing just that…
After hours of downhill, and encounter with three bears, a couple of crashes, and a little dirt road action, we rolled into Tyax Lodge to collect our trailers.
Of course, with a bar right there, what do you think happened?
Things really went to pieces when a Dutch tourist started handing out the cigars.
Some of us were a little unclear on how to smoke them though.
Steve thought he had the program figured out. A ga ga ga ga ga……I yam what I yam.
Ooops. I guess that wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“But will I still be cute?”
Our last camp (well nearly last) on Anderson Lake.
We had originally planned on picking up a lift in Goldbridge and trying for Tenquille Lake near Pemberton, but most of us were falling apart at this point. Shreddie and I had sore knees (mine was essentially toast), Steve was a crusty scab, Shane had a HUGE crash and smashed his back, and everyone else was just plain tired, so we called it off and hung out in Goldbridge waiting for our ride back to Williams Lake.
In a word … EPIC. Now about next year…..
